American Political Culture • Government and Politics • From the State of Nature to Democracy • What do Americans Think About Government? Politics • Harold Lasswell defined politics as.
Download ReportTranscript American Political Culture • Government and Politics • From the State of Nature to Democracy • What do Americans Think About Government? Politics • Harold Lasswell defined politics as.
Slide 1
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 2
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 3
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 4
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 5
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 6
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 7
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 8
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 9
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 10
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 11
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 12
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 13
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 14
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 15
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 16
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 17
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 18
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 19
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 20
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 21
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 22
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 23
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 24
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 25
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 26
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 27
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 28
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 29
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 30
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 31
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 32
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 33
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 34
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 35
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 36
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 37
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 38
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 39
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 40
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 41
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 42
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 43
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 44
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 45
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 46
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 47
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 48
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 49
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 50
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 51
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 52
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 53
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 54
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 55
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 56
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 57
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 58
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 59
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 60
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 61
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 62
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 63
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 64
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 65
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 66
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 67
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 68
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 69
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 70
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 71
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 72
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 73
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 74
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 75
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 76
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 77
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 78
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 79
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 80
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 81
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 82
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 83
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 84
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 85
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 2
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 3
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 4
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 5
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 6
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 7
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 8
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 9
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 10
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 11
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 12
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 13
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 14
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 15
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 16
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 17
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 18
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 19
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 20
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 21
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 22
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 23
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 24
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 25
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 26
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 27
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 28
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 29
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 30
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 31
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 32
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 33
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 34
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 35
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 36
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 37
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 38
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 39
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 40
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 41
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 42
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 43
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 44
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 45
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 46
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 47
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 48
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 49
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 50
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 51
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 52
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 53
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 54
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 55
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 56
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 57
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 58
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 59
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 60
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 61
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 62
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 63
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 64
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 65
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 66
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 67
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 68
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 69
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 70
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 71
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 72
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 73
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 74
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 75
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 76
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 77
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 78
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 79
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 80
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 81
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 82
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 83
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 84
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?
Slide 85
American Political Culture
• Government and
Politics
• From the State of
Nature to Democracy
• What do Americans
Think About
Government?
Politics
• Harold Lasswell defined politics as the struggle
over “who gets what, when and how”
Picasso’s Guernica
Politics
• Another way to think
about politics is the
conflicts and struggle
over the leadership,
structure, and policies
of government
Protestors with Guernica Replica
Pluralism vs. Elitism
• Pluralism is the
pattern of struggles
among numerous
interests (factions)
over the political
process and policy
• Elitism is the influence
of a single group of
elites over the political
process and policy
Political Science
• Political Science is
the study of politics
and is generally
concerned with
three questions
– Who Governs?
– For What Means?
– By What Means?
Government
• The institutions and procedures through
which a territory and people are ruled
– U.S. House of Representatives
– United Nations General Assembly
The Functions of Government
• Establish and Enforce
Rules and Laws
• Protect Property Rights
• Redistribute Wealth
• Create and Maintain
Infrastructure
– Roads and Highways
– Compare food delivery in the
Congo to that of the United
States
Government
• Max Weber, the German
sociologist, defined
government as that
institution in society that
has a monopoly over the
legitimate use of force
• Government must be
recognized as legitimate to
exercise authority
Legitimacy
• Legitimacy is the
widespread acceptance of
something as necessary,
rightful and legally binding
• Weber’s Sources of
Legitimacy
– Charismatic
– Traditional
– Rational/Legal
Charismatic Legitimacy
• Based on personal
power of leader,
which may be
supernatural
– King Arthur and Excalibur
– Asante Golden Stool
Traditional Legitimacy
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Edward
• Based on history, tradition or custom such as
hereditary monarchy
Rational or Legal Legitimacy
• Derived from
established
procedures,
principles or laws
(i.e., elections)
President Bush Welcomes Nobel Prize
Winner Al Gore to the White House
Forms of Government
• Governments can be classified in a number of ways
– Who Governs
– How they Govern
– Political Ideology
Who Governs
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Autocracy
Oligarchy/Aristocracy
Gerontocracy
Kleptocracy
Krytocracy
Meritocracy
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
Plutocracy
Theocracy
Democracy
Anarchy
• Anarchy is the absence
of government or the
absence of the state
• President William
McKinley was
assassinated by an
anarchist in 1901
Autocracy
• A government of one
–
–
–
–
King or Queen
Dictator
Emperor
Pharaoh
• William the Conqueror
defeated Harold for the
crown of England at the
Battle of Hastings in
1066
Oligarchy or Aristocracy
• Government by a small elite
group such as landowners
or military officers
– The French Revolution
overthrew an aristocratic
social structure
– Similar land reform
revolutions took place
throughout Latin America
• Zapatistas (Mexico)
• Mission Zamora (Venezuela)
Gerontocracy
• A gerontocracy is a
government by elders
• The Eight Immortals
of Communist China
– Deng Xiaoping and the
other elders of the
Communist Party ruled
during the 1980s and
1990s
Kleptocracy
• A kleptocracy is a government that steals the
nations assets for personal enrichment
– Zaire under Mobutu
– Indonesia under Suharto
– Philippines under Marcos
Krytocracy
• Government ruled by judges
United States Supreme Court
Meritocracy
• Government based
on merit or ability
such as Plato’s
Philosopher Kings
– MENSA of
Springfield
governed based on
intelligence
Ochlocracy/Mobocracy
• Government by the
mob or angry crowd
• The mobs fueled the
French Revolution
• Can the crowd be
controlled?
– Sigmund Freud
– Le Bon The Crowd
– Serge Moscovici
Plutocracy
• Government by the wealthy
Money has always played an important role in U.S. politics
Theocracy
• A theocracy is a
government by
religious leaders
– Tibet in Exile
– Iran
– Afghanistan
Democracy
• A government in
which political power
is vested in the people
– Direct democracy
provides for decision
making by the people
– Representative
democracy provides
for representatives
chosen by the people
Representative Democracy
• Today, most nationstates operate under the
concept of representative
democracy
• Individuals are elected
by the citizens to
represent them in the
affairs of civil society
British House of Commons
Types of Elections in a
Representative Democracy
• National
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• State and Local
• Primaries and Runoffs
• General Election
• Recall
Polish Solidarity Election Poster
2003 California Recall Election
• Governor Gray Davis of
California was recalled as
Governor
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
defeated 135 candidates
– Gary Coleman finished 8th
– Porn star Mary Carey finished 10th
Types of Elections in a Direct
Democracy
• Initiatives
• Referendums
• Constitutional
Amendments
– Texas
– Colorado
• New England
Town Hall Meetings
How Do Governments Govern?
Constitutional versus Totalitarian
Totalitarian Government
• Totalitarian governments
are free from legal limits
and seek to eliminate
those organized social
groups that might
challenge or limit the
governments authority
– Soviet Union
– Nazi Germany
Authoritarianism
• Authoritarianism is the
psychological “profile” that
supports totalitarian
political systems
– Adorno, et al developed the
F-Scale after WWII
– Milgram Experiment
– Stanford Prison Guard
Experiment
1984
• George Orwell’s novel
depicts the totalitarian
state
– Big Brother
– Thought Police
– Thought Crime
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
• The power of the police
state is vividly described
in The Gulag Archipelago
and One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich
Constitutional Government
• Constitutional governments are limited as to what
they are permitted to control (substantive) as well
as how they go about it (procedural)
The Politics of Ideology
• Governments are also
classified based on the
role government is
expected to play in
society
– Left versus Right
– Two Dimensional
– Three Dimensional
The Politics of Ideology
• The Left
– Communism (Marx, Lenin,
Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che)
– Soviet Union
– China
– Cuba
– Social Democracy
– Sweden
– Norway
– Germany
The Politics of Ideology
• The Center
– Classical Liberalism
• David Hume
• Simon Bolivar
– Conservatism
• Edmund Burke
The Politics of Ideology
• The Right
– Fascism
•
•
•
•
Nazi Germany
Mussolini’s Italy
Peron’s Argentina
Franco’s Spain???
Evolution of Government
• Hobbes and Locke both
contend that man began in
the state of nature and
were absolutely free
• Hobbes notes that during
this period man was in a
“condition called war; and
such war as is of every
man against every man”
Lord of Flies
• William Golding’s
Lord of the Flies
depicts school boys
being thrust into the
state of nature and
their attempts to
form civil society
“Poor Piggy”
Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha
• The first Kings were the
fathers of their families
as Adam was lord over
his family
– This lordship which
Adam by creation had
over the whole world,
and by right descending
from him the patriarchs
did enjoy, was as large
and ample as the
absolutist dominion of
any monarch which hath
been since the creation.
The Evolution of Government
•
•
•
•
•
Families and Clans
Tribes and Villages
Cities/City-States
Empires
Nation-States
Europe, 500 CE
The Peoples of Britain
The Unification of England
• Alfred the Great
began the
unification of
England
• Alfred’s son
Edward the Elder
becomes first King
of England in 899
The Norman Invasion
• William the
Conqueror defeats
Harold at the Battle
of Hastings in 1066
The Normans and Feudalism
• Feudalism was
essentially a pyramid
scheme in which
military support was
exchange for land and
titles
Feudalism
Feudal Japan
• Japan also developed a feudal society out of
which the legend of the Samurai was born
Feudalism in the New World
• Spain introduced a form
of feudalism, the
Encomieda System, in
Latin America
• Father Hidalgo led a
peasant uprising in
Mexico against the landed
aristocracy
The Magna Carta
• The Magna Carta (1215)
establishes the “constitutional
monarchy”
• This gave rise to the House of
Lords and the House of
Commons
King John and the Magna Carta
Absolutism 1576-1649
• Thomas Hobbes
– Leviathan
• Jean Bodin
– Six Books on the
Commonweal
Classical Liberalism 1649-1850
• The death of Charles I
was the end of
absolutism in England
• John Locke and
Adam Smith became
advocates for limited
government
– Two Treatises on
Government
– The Wealth of Nations
Thucydides
• The Peloponnesian War
– Funeral oration of Pericles
praises Athens as a model
democracy
– Pericles also praises those
who have died defending
democracy
• The whole earth is the burial
place of famous men; they
are honored not only by
columns and inscriptions in
their own land, but in foreign
nations on memorials graven
not on stone but in the hearts
and minds of men
Aristotle
• Politics
– Typology of Governments
• Policy-Democracy
• Aristocracy-Oligarchy
• Monarchy-Tyranny
– Citizenship defined
• "The citizen in an
unqualified sense is
defined by no other thing
so much as by sharing in
decision and office"
Machiavelli
(not Tupac)
• The Prince
– The ends justifies the means
– A prince must not mind incurring
the charge of cruelty to protect the
whole of society
– A prince ought to be both feared
and loved, but it is safer to be
feared than loved if one of the
two has to be wanting
• Tupac aka Makaveli
– Machiavelli advocated faking
one's death to fool one’s
enemies
– Tupac was a fan of Machiavelli
and had read his books
The Protestant Reformation
• Martin Luther
• John Calvin
• John Knox
Thomas Hobbes
• Leviathan
– Supports absolutism
David Hume
• The Scottish
Enlightenment
John Locke
• Two Treatises of Government
– Man is born with inalienable rights of
life, liberty and property
– Man creates government for the limited
purpose of protecting these rights
– Governments may be replaced for
failing to protect these inalienable
rights
• Provides the philosophical defense
for overthrowing Charles I and the
American Revolution
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• The Social Contract
Montesquieu
• On the Spirit of the
Laws
– All governments
legislate, execute and
adjudicate
– Tyranny prevented by
separating powers
– Most cited by American
Founding Fathers
Sir William Blackstone
• Commentaries on the
Laws of England
– Blackstone’s lectures
on constitutional law
provided the legal
foundation for the
American Revolution
Adam Smith
• The Wealth of Nations
– Promotes limited role for
government in economic
matters
– Consistent with John
Locke’s limited role for
government
– Smith and Locke
establish the tradition of
classical liberalism
Thomas Jefferson
• Declaration of
Independence
• Notes on the State of
Virginia
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison
and John Jay
• The Federalist Papers
– 85 Essays written under the
pseudonym Publius
– Provides a complete
defense of the Constitution
in urging ratification
– Provides the original intent
of the Constitution’s
framers
John C. Calhoun
• Representative and Senator
from South Carolina
• Vice-President
• Disquisition on Government
and Discourse on the
Constitution
– States Rights
– Nullification
– Secession
John Stuart Mill
• On Liberty
– Advocates moral and
economic freedom of the
individual from the state
– "Over himself, over his
own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign“
– People can do anything
they like as long as it does
not harm others
Karl Marx
• Das Kapital
• The Communist
Manifesto
Henry David Thoreau
• Civil Disobedience
• Thoreau protested
slavery and the
Mexican-American
War by not paying
accrued poll taxes
Mohandis Gandhi
• Gandhi on Civil Disobedience
– Violent means will give violent
freedom
– That would be a menace to the
world and to India herself
– Non-violence is the greatest force
at the disposal of mankind
– It is mightier than the mightiest
weapon of destruction devised by
the ingenuity of man
Hannah Arendt
• The Origins of Totalitarianism
• Eichmann in Jerusalem
– Arendt described Eichmann as a
bureaucrat who did his duty and
followed orders, rather than a raving
ideologue animated by demonic antiSemitism, was strikingly original
– Eichmann did not exemplify "radical
evil," but "the banality of evil”
– This danger can not be confined to the
political peculiarities of the Third
Reich as evil exists in ordinary men
who refuse to act
Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Letter from Birmingham Jail
– One has not only a legal but a moral
responsibility to obey just laws
– Conversely, one has a moral
responsibility to disobey unjust laws
– I would agree with St. Augustine that
"an unjust law is no law at all”
– An unjust law is a human law that is
not rooted in eternal law and natural
law
Ayn Rand
• The Fountainhead and Atlas
Shrugged denounce the collective
• Rand’s political philosophy
– Rand political thought is in the
classical liberal tradition, with an
emphasis upon individualism, the
constitutional protection of
individual rights to life, liberty, and
property, and limited government
– Rand believed true laissez faire
capitalism is the only just and
prosperous economic system
– Rand rejects all forms of mixed
economies that plague the world and
believes in no economic government
interventions, such as the
redistribution of wealth
John Rawls
• A Theory of Justice
– The most influential
work of political
philosophy in the
second half of the
twentieth century
The Initial Debate:
The Proper Role of Government
• The Founding Fathers were divided over the
proper size and role of government
– The Federalists wanted a strong central
government to promote commerce, prevent
political strife, and protect international
interests
– The Anti-Federalists feared that a strong central
government would endanger liberty, thereby
favoring weaker and decentralized government
The Current Debate
• The conflict continues today between
conservatives (Republicans) and liberals
(Democrats)
– Conservatives (Republicans) seek a strong
government to protect economic interests, public
morality and international interests, and generally
prefer state government action
– Liberals (Democrats) seek a strong national
government to protect civil liberties, the environment,
and to provide economic security
Demanding a Stronger Government
• Yet, there are times when
we develop a siege
mentality and demand
even more regulation of
human behavior resulting
in less freedom
• Government is expected to
maintain order
– Prevent Crime
– Terrorism
Trust in Government
• In 1964, approximately 75% of Americans trusted
the government all of the time or most of the time
• By 1994, less than 25% Americans expressed trust
in government
Why the Decline in Trust?
•
•
•
•
Government too large
Dissatisfaction with Government
Lack of political efficacy
Government Scandals
–
–
–
–
–
Wounded Knee
Tuskegee Experiments
Elian Gonzalez
Branch Davidians
Ruby Ridge
The Absence of Trust:
Implications
• May lead to a refusal to
comply with the law
• May jeopardize national
security
• May lead to revolution
and the collapse of
democracy
Watts Riot 1965
Citizenship & Government
The Importance of Knowledge
• Citizens must have the
knowledge needed to
participate in the political
process
– Knowledge of government
– Knowledge of politics
– Knowledge of democratic
principles
• Americans, however, are
poorly informed and
uninterested
How Many Can You Name?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
Can You Name These Individuals?
Knowledge of
U.S. Political Leaders
How Many Can You Name?