POLITICS &

GOVERNMENT

LECTURER: NOOR SYAFIKA RAMLI

FOR: SOCA 1010

CONTENT

POWER & AUTHORITY

3 Types of Authority

POLITICS IN GLOBAL

PERSPECTIVES

Types of Politics

THEORIES OF POWER IN SOCIETY

POWER AND AUTHORITY:SOCIOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

POLITIC POWER MICROPOLITICS

MACROPOLITICSLEGITIMATE

POWERILLIGETIMATE

POWER

GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY

POWER AND AUTHORITY

• Essentially, politics is associated with the govt, kings, queens, coups, dictatorship, voting , etc. But the term actually has a much broader meaning.

• Definition of Politics – polity

: Is the social institutions that distributes power, sets a society’s goals and make decision.

: the exercise of power and attempts to maintain or to change power relations.

• Definition of Power – Max Weber claimed that every society is based on power.

– Power is the ability to achieve desired ends despite resistance from others.

– Power is the ability to carry out one’s will, even over the resistance of others.

– Power struggles – workers with their bosses, power struggle within family members, (all these attempts to gain or keep power) these also consider as political actions.

• Therefore, in our everyday life, we practice

power. Additionally, the elements of power

according to symbolic interactionist could

be categorized into two:

i) Micropolitics – to refer to the exercise of

power in everyday life

ii) Macropolitics – refers to the exercise of

power over a large group

E.g.: the governments; whether dictatorship

or democracies, they are the examples of

macropolitics.

POWER AND AUTHORITY

• For every society development, it is inevitably for a society to encompassed a system of leadership.

• Some people must have power over others

• Weber perceive power into two type that is legitimate power and illegitimate power.

– Legitimate power : is called as authority i.e. power people accept as right.

– Illegitimate power : known as coercion i.e. power that people do not accept as just.

POWER AND AUTHORITY

• The use of power is the business of government. Government is a formal organization that directs the political life of a society.

• How do government try to make itself seem legitimate in the eyes of the people?

• Through – “authority” as mentioned by Weber.

• Authority - power that people perceive as legitimate rather than coercive. This relations of power authority is legitimate

• How do governments transform raw power into more stable authority?

POWER AND AUTHORITY

: Types of Authority

Traditional Authority

Rational Legal

Authority

Charismatic Authority

Traditional Authority

• Traditional Authority; power legitimized by respect for long-established cultural patterns.

• Characteristics of Traditional Authority:

a) preindustrial societies

b) populations collective memory –people’s accept a system

c) usually one of hereditary leadership

d) strong power in political system, absolute power and almost godlike

e) Source of strength for patriarchy, domination by men

• Examples of Traditional Authority:

- Chinese emperors

- Aristocratic rulers in medieval Europe

• Traditional authority declines as societies industrialize.

• Traditional authority remains strong only as long as everyone shares the same belief and way of life (Hannah Arendt,1963).

• How ?

a) Through modern scientific thinking,

b) the specialization demanded by industrial production and,

c) the social changes and,

d) the cultural diversity resulting immigration all combine to weaken tradition.

• There are still hereditary rulers who claim

a traditional right to rule. But this claim is

easily out of step with modern society.

• Today's hereditary rules, their power over

society has been minimized, relinquished,

and regulated by another authority;

government.

E.g. : In the United Kingdom, Malaysia.

Rational Legal Authority

• Weber defined rational legal authority (bureaucratic authority) :as power legitimized by legally enacted rules and regulations.

• Rational legal authority is power legitimized in the operation of lawful government.

• Weber viewed bureaucracy as the type of organization that dominates in rational thinking, modern societies.

• Members of today’s high income societies seek justice through the operation of a political system that follows formally enacted rules of law.

• Rationally enacted rules also guide the use of power in everyday life.

• Examples of Rational Legal Authority:

a) the authority of deans / classroom

teachers/ lecturers – rests on the offices

they hold in bureaucratic colleges and

universities

b) the police officer / police traffic / security

guard in uniform possessed rational legal

authority

• Traditional authority - comes from family background – ascribed status

• Rational legal authority - comes from a position in government organization

• Traditional monarch - rules for life

• Rational legal/modern rules - the president or the prime minister accepts and gives up power according to law, which shows that presidential authority lies in the office not in the person

Charismatic Authority

• Charismatic authority: is power legitimized by extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and obedience.

• Charismatic authority depends less on a person’s ancestry or office and more on personality.

• Charismatic authority characteristics:

a) using their personal skills to turn an audience into followers

b) make their own rules and challenge the status quo

• Examples:

a) Jesus of Nazareth

b) Adolf Hitler

c) India’s liberator, Mahatma Gandhi

d) US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

• Charismatic authority flows from a single individual, the leaders death creates a crisis.

• Survival of a charismatic movement, Weber explained, requires the “routinization of charisma” – the transformation of charismatic authority into some combination of traditional and bureaucratic authority.

• Example:

After the death of Jesus, followers

institutionalized his teachings in a church,

built on tradition and bureaucracy.

Routinized in this way, the Roman Catholic

Church has lasted for 2000 years.

POLITICS IN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES: Types of Politics

(refer to another slide)

Monarchy Democracy Authoritarianism

TotalitarianismDictatorship &

Oligarchies

MONARCHY VS.DEMOCRACY

ASPECT MONARCHY DEMOCRACY

RULER Single ruler Collective / majority

ruler

SELECTION OF THE

RULER

Ascribed status

Inheritance / singles

family rules from

generation to gen.

Achieved status

Election / people’s

decision

RULING SYSTEM /

RULING MECHANISM

Royal

Only few line

Legislative, judiciary

and executive

TYPE Traditional political

system Modern political system

POLITICAL RIGHTS

Right and power meant

to the royal families

No freedom of speech

Right and power to the

people

Stress on the freedom

of speech

TYPE OF AUTHORITY Traditional authority Rational-legal authority