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CHAPTER 1 – KEY CONCEPTS
KEY ARGUMENTS
• Like all fields of study, political science uses concepts whose definitions – while often
disputed – are important to understand
• While government describes the institutions and offices through which societies are
governed, governance describes the process of collective decision-making.
• An exact definition of politics is difficult, because the term has multiple nuances. But it is
clearly a collective activity, occurring between or among people.
• 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.
GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNANCE
• Government
= The institutions and structures through which societies are governed
large units must develop procedures and institutions for making and enforcing collective
decisions. By doing so, they give themselves a government.
• Institution
= A formal organization or practice with a political purpose or effect, marked by durability
and internal complexity.
• Government does not just consist of prime ministers, governors etc., but all organizations
charged with reaching and executing decisions for a community
police, military, bureaucrats and judges as well (even if they do not come to office through
elections).
• Thus, government
= The community of institutions endowed with public authority
• But the term government can also apply to
1) The group of people who govern (the Japanese government)
2) A specific administration (the Putin government)
3) The form of the system of rule (centralized government)
4) The character of the administration of a community (good government)
• Hobbes made the argument for the institution of government
he thought all men were bad and that they thus needed a government to control them
(natural state = anarchy).
• In a democracy, government supposedly provides security and predictability to those who
live under its jurisdiction.
• The danger of Hobbes’s commonwealth is that it will abuse its own authority
John Locke (Hobbes’s critic) said: “there is no profit in avoiding the dangers of foxes if the
outcome is simply to be devoured by lions”.
a key aim in studying government, then, is to discover how to cure its benefits while also
limiting its inherent dangers.
• Political system
= The interactions and organizations through which a society reaches and successfully
enforces collective decisions.
includes outside influences (in a democracy: interest groups, political parties, the media,
corporations, and public opinion).
A political system thus means more than a government: it is the space in which most of
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the activity of a country’s politics – positive and negative, in the public or private interest –
takes place.
• Governance
= The process by which decisions, laws, and policies are made, with or without the input of
formal institutions.
highlights the process and quality of collective decision-making
emphasis is on the activity of governing (we speak of global governance but there is no
global government, there is however a large community of IOs such as the UN, thousands of
treaties that form the basis of international law, and a constant interaction involving
governments, corporations, and interest groups, all of which amount to a process of
governance).
prominent in discussions about EU (system of governance, not really a government)
Because governance refers to the activity of ruling, it has also become the preferred term
when examining the quality and effectiveness of rule.
POLITICS AND POWER
• Politics
= The process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and
executing shared or collective decisions.
the boundaries of politics are less precise
• Three aspects of politics
1) It is a collective activity, occurring between and among people.
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 members (even if some of them continue to resist, which is – in itself
– a political activity).
• People have different definitions of politics.
Politics has different facets. It involves shared and competing interests; cooperation and
conflict; reason and force. Each concept is necessary, but only together are they sufficient.
The essence of politics lies in the interactions between conceptions, and we should not
narrow our vision by reducing politics to either one.
• At the heart of politics, is the distribution and manipulation of power.
• 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.
emphasis on power to rather than power over (on the ability to achieve goals, rather than
the more specific exercise of control over other people or countries).
• Steven Lukes (2005) distinguishes three dimensions of power:
Core question Core quality
Dimension
First Who prevails when Decisions are made on
preferences conflict? issues over which there is
an observable conflict of
interests.
Second Who controls whether Decisions are prevented
preferences are expressed? from being taken on
potential issues over which
there is an observable
conflict of interests.
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Third Who shapes preferences? Potential issues are kept out
of politics, whether through
social forces, institutional
practices, or the decisions of
individuals.
1) 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. It focuses on
manipulating preferences rather than just preventing their expression.
The most efficient form of power is the one that allows us to shape people’s
information and preferences, thus preventing the first and second dimensions from
coming into play.
SPOTLIGHT NIGERIA
• Although Nigeria has been independent since 1960, it was not until 2015 that it experiences
a presidential election in which the officeholder was defeated by an opposition opponent.
• Nigeria is currently enjoying its longest spell of civilian government, since independence, but
the military continues to play an important role, the economy is dominated by oil, corruption
is common at every level of society, security concerns and poor infrastructure discourage
foreign investment, and a combination of ethnic and religious divisions (Muslim north, a non-
Muslim south) pose worrying threats to stability.
• Attacks since 2002 by the Islamist group Boko Haram, have added to the country’s problems,
but it has still – nonetheless- been recently upgraded from authoritarian to a hybrid on the
Democracy Index.
THE STATE, AUTHORITY, AND LEGITIMACY
• A state contains a population living within a defined territory, and each recognized by its
residents and by other states as having the right to rule that territory.
States provide the legal mandate for the work of governments, allowing them to use the
authority inherent in the state.
• 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 provides the foundation for the state.
• 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.
• Legitimacy
= The condition of being legitimate. A legitimate system of government is one based on
authority, and those subject to its rule recognize its right to make decisions.
When a state is widely accepted by its citizens, and by other states with which it deals.
We can think of legitimacy as the credit a political system has built up from its past
successes (flourishing economy, international success), a reserve that can be drawn down in
bad times.
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It is legitimacy, rather than force alone, which provides the most stable foundation for
rule.
IDEOLOGY
• Ideology
= A system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for how politics,
economics, and society should be structured.
Ideology Typical features
Anarchism All forms of governmental authority are
unnecessary, and society is best structured
around voluntary cooperation and free
association.
Marxism Elimination of the state system and private
property will lead to the creation of a
classless, non-exploitive, and self-governing
society.
Liberalism Individuals are the best judges of their own
interests. Advocates a tolerant society
which maximizes personal freedom and
favours a government which is limited but
freely elected.
Conservatism Traditional institutions and practices work
best, the free market is the most efficient at
meeting societal needs, and government
should be as decentralized as possible.
Fascism Supports the achievements of national
unity through an authoritarian state, strong
leadership, mass mobilization, and an
emphasis on nationalism and militarism.
• Political action is motivated by the ideas people hold about it.
• The era of explicit ideology beginning with the French Revolution ended in the twentieth
century with the defeat of fascism in 1945 and the collapse of communism at the end of the
1980s.
To describe any perspective, position, or priority as an ideology is to extend the term in a
manner that bears little relation to its original interpretation as a coherent system of ideas.
• We still talk about ideologies, placing them left and right.
Left is associated with equality, human rights, and reform.
Right favours tradition, established authority, and pursuit of the national interest.
COMPARATIVE POLITICS
• Comparative politics
= The systematic study of government and politics in different countries, designed to better
understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities.
Broadening understanding
• The first strength of a comparative approach is that it improves our understanding of
governments and politics.
• Through comparison we can pin down the key features of political institutions, processes,
and actions, and better appreciate the dynamics and character of political systems.
Predicting political outcomes
