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Summary Law, Power and Politics (University of Groningen 2021)
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Summary of the course Law, Power and Politics at the university of Groningen, written in 2021. Course number RGBPW50405. Lectures 1 - 7
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Summary: Law, Power and PoliticsUniversity of Groningen 2021
Lecture 1: Introduction to Law, Power and Politics
- Hague, R., Harrop, M. and J. McCormick (2019), Comparative Government and Politics,
London: Red Globe Press, Chapter 1 and 6.
Lecture 2: Explaining European Governance
- Ian Bache, Stephen George and Simon Bulmer (2015), Politics in the European Union,
Chapter 2: Theories of EU Governance. Oxford University Press, pp. 24-43.
Lecture 3: Influence/Power and the Role of Interest Groups in European Decision Making
- N Zeegers, 'The ECI: How to establish the influence it gives citizens over de EU agenda?'
In J Harst, G Hoogers and G Voerman (eds) European Citizenship in perspective (Edward
Elgar Publishing 2018) - Pages 137-157.
Lecture 4: Methods of Comparative Politics and Intermediaries
- Hague, R., Harrop, M. and J. McCormick (2019), Comparative Government and Politics,
London: Red Globe Press, Chapter 3
- K Abbott, D. Levi-Faur and D Snidal and B Zangl, 'Theorizing Regulatory Intermediaries:
The RIT model' ANNALS, AAPSS 670, 21
Lecture 5: Theoretical and empirical approaches to international politics
- Oliver Daddow (2017), International Relations Theory, Chapter 6: Neorealism and
Neoliberalism, Sage, 101-114.
Lecture 6: International actors: How international law is made
- Keck, Margaret E. and Kathryn Sikkink (1999), ‘Transnational Advocacy Networks in
International and Regional Politics’, International Social Science Journal, pp. 89-101.
Lecture 7: Explaining EU integration
- Lisbeth Hooghe and Gary Marks (2019), Grand theories of European integration in the
twenty-first century, Journal of European Public Policy, 1113-1133
- Ian Bache, Stephen George and Simon Bulmer (2015), Politics in the European Union,
Chapter 3: Theorizing Consequences. Oxford University Press, 44-62.
,Lecture 1
Comparative government and politics Chapter 1
➢ While government describes the institutions and offices through which societies are
governed, governance describes the process of collective decision-making.
➢ Politics is clearly a collective activity, occurring between or among people. The process
by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing shared
or collective decisions.
➢ Power is the capacity to bring about intended effects and is central to understanding
both government and politics. Authority and legitimacy are key related concepts.
➢ Ideology may have lost its original meaning as the science of ideas, but it remains useful
as a way of packaging different views about the role of government and the goals of
public policy.
➢ Typologies help us compare, imposing order on the variety of the world’s political
systems, and helping us develop explanations and rules.
➢ A good definition of a democracy is a political system in which government is based on a
fair and open mandate from all qualified citizens of a state.
➢ Political science = the study of the theory and practice of government and politics,
focusing on the structure and dynamics of institutions, political processes, and political
behaviour.
Government = The term government is usually used to describe the highest level of political
offices in a society: presidents, prime ministers, legislatures, governors, mayors, and others
at the apex of power. But government actually consists of all organizations charged with
reaching and executing decisions for a community. By this definition, the police, the military,
bureaucrats, and judges are all part of government, even if they do not come to office
through the methods usually associated with government, such as elections. In this broader
conception, government is the entire community of institutions endowed with public
authority.
Classic case had been made by Thomas Hobbes. He argued that government provides us
with protection from the harm that we would otherwise inflict on each other in our quest for
gain and glory. By granting a monopoly of the sword to a government, we transform anarchy
into order, securing peace and the opportunity for mutually beneficial cooperation.
The case for government was well made by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) in his famous
treatise Leviathan, published in 1651. His starting point was the fundamental equality in our
ability to inflict harm on others: For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength
enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others. So
arises a clash of ambition and fear of attack: From this equality of ability, arises equality of
hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore if any two men desire the same thing, which
nevertheless they cannot both enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end,
which is principally their own conservation, and sometimes their own delectation,
endeavour to destroy or subdue one another. Without a ruler to keep us in check, the
situation becomes grim: Hereby it is manifest, that during the time men live without a
,common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and
such a war, as is of every man, against every man.
People therefore agree (by means unclear) to set up an absolute government to avoid a life
that would otherwise be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’: The only way to erect such
a common power, as may be able to defend them from the invasion of foreigners, and the
injuries of one another ... is, to confer all their power and strength upon one man, or one
assembly of men, that may reduce all their wills, by plurality of voices, unto one will ... This
done, the multitude so united is called a COMMONWEALTH.
The risk of Hobbes’s commonwealth is that it will abuse its own authority, creating more
problems than it solves. As John Locke – one of Hobbes’s critics –
pointed out, there is no profit in avoiding the dangers of foxes if the outcome is simply to be
devoured by lions (Locke, 1690). A key aim in studying government, then, is to discover how
to secure its benefits while also limiting its inherent dangers.
➢ Political system = the interactions and organizations through which a society reaches
and successfully enforces collective decisions. See also discussion in
➢ Governance = the process by which decisions, laws, and policies are made, with or
without the input of formal institutions.
➢ Politics The process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making
and executing shared or collective decisions.
Three aspects of politics:
1. It is a collective activity, occurring between and among people. A lone castaway on a
desert island could not engage in politics, but if there were two castaways on the same
island, they would have a political relationship.
2. It involves making decisions regarding a course of action to take, or a disagreement to be
resolved.
3. Once reached, political decisions become authoritative policy for the group, binding and
committing its members (even if some of them continue to resist, which is – in itself – a
political activity).
In Aristotle’s model constitution, ‘the ideal citizens rule in the interests of all, not because
they are forced to by checks and balances, but because they see it as right to do so’. “Men is
by nature a political animal”.
➢ Power = the capacity to bring about intended effects. The term is often used as a
synonym for influence but is also used more narrowly to refer to more forceful modes of
influence notably, getting one’s way by threats.
, Here, the three dimensions of power distinguished by Steven Lukes (2005) (see Table 1.1)
are useful, because they help us answer the question of how we can measure a group’s
power, or at least establish whether one group is more powerful than another.
1. The first dimension is straightforward: power should be judged by identifying whose
views prevail when the actors involved possess conflicting views on what should be
done.
2. The second dimension focuses on the capacity to keep issues off the political agenda by
preventing the emergence of topics which would threaten the values or interests of
decision-makers.
3. The third dimension broadens our conception of power by extending it to cover the
formation, rather than merely the expression, of preferences. Where the first and
second dimensions assume conflicting preferences, the third dimension addresses the
idea of a manipulated consensus.
➢ The implication of these examples is that the most efficient form of power is one that
allows us to shape people’s information and preferences, thus preventing the first and
second dimensions from coming into play. Denying people access to information is one
way of achieving this
➢ Authority = The right to rule. Authority creates its own power, so long as people accept
that the person in authority has the right to make decisions.
Authority is a concept that is broader than power and, in some ways, more fundamental to
comparative politics. Where power is the capacity to act, authority is the acknowledged right
to do so. It exists when subordinates accept the capacity of superiors to give legitimate
orders
Just as there are different sources of power, so too can authority be built on a range of foun-
dations. Max Weber distinguished three ways of validating political power:
1. By tradition, or the accepted way of doing things.
2. By charisma, or intense commitment to a leader and his or her message.
3. By appeal to legal–rational norms, based on the rule-governed powers of an office,
rather than a person.
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