Evolution of government in the European tradition
Date: 2015-10-07; view: 467.
The Greeks were the first to develop democracy as a means of governance of the people, by the people. However, this democracy was limited to free, male, landholders. Nevertheless, it demonstrated the viability of government by the governed.
The Roman Republic is credited with significant innovation in types of government. It was an early example of a bicameral legislative system, which divided power between the patrician aristocracy and plebian general citizens. It also contained the beginnings of representative democracy, having various officers selected for fixed terms by popular election. Following the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe reverted to feudal monarchy. The Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution each increased the availability of education and leisure to otherwise disenfranchised classes along with a desire to participate in governance. In the 18th century democracy re-emerged as politics by the people, for the people. In the 19th century Karl Marx believed the process of political progress would not be complete until after economic classes no longer existed and every person was the master of his own fate.
(Wikipedia article)
Issues of Politics
There are three main issues of politics these are:
Power is the ability to impose one's will on another. It implies a capacity for force, i.e. violence.
(John .J Macionis, Kenyon College)
Power is a measure of an entity's ability to control its environment, including the behavior of other entities. The term authority is often used for power, perceived as legitimate by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust, but the exercise of power is accepted as endemic to humans as social beings. In the corporate environment, power is often expressed as upward or downward. With downward power, a company's superior influences subordinate. When a company exerts upward power, it is the subordinates who influence the decisions of the leader. Often, the study of power in a society is referred to as politics. The use of power need not involve coercion (force or the threat of force).
Ø Authority is the power to enforce laws, to exact obedience, to command, to determine, or to judge.
(John .J Macionis, Kenyon College)
Authority, from the Latin word auctorial, means invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. Essentially authority is imposed by superiors upon inferiors either by force of arms (structural authority) or by force of argument (sapiential authority). Usually authority has components of both compulsion and persuasion. For this reason, as used in Roman law, authority is differentiated protests legal or military power and emporiums persuasive political rank or standing.
Authority is further divide into following categories these are:
· Traditional authority
· Rational legal authority
· Charismatic authority
Ø Traditional authority:
Power legitimized by respect for long established cultural patterns.
Ø Rational legal authority:
It is power legitimized by legally enacted rules and regulation also non as Bureaucratic authority.
Ø Charismatic authority:
It is power legitimized by extra ordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and obedience.
( John .J Macionis, Kenyon College)
Ø Legitimacy is an attribute of government gained through the application of power in accordance with recognized or accepted standards or principles.
The increase in cases of political corruption, the loss of politicians' credibility, the development of social and political forms of pathology (notably the rise of the extreme right along with exclusionist ideologies), and the role of the State have been at the center of political debates. In one way or another, these problems raise the question of the legitimacy of the established powers. The result is that legitimacy, a key notion of political thought in general, has today become a burning issue. Coicaud examines all these issues and proffers insightful answers to questions such as the connections between morality and politics, how rulers acquire or lose the right to govern, and how one can become the advocate of a theory of political justice that, while establishing limits, respects and even ensures the promotion of plurality within societies.
(Jean-Marc Coicaud, United Nations University, Tokyo)
Ø A government is the body that has the authority to make and enforce rules or laws. In the social sciences, the term government refers to the particular group of people, the administrative bureaucracy, who control a state at a given time, and the manner in which their governing organizations are structured.
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