Political system

In political science, a political system means the form of political organization that can be observed, recognised or otherwise declared by a society or state.

It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the governmental legal and economic system, social and cultural system, and other state and government specific systems. However, this is a very simplified view of a much more complex system of categories involving the questions of who should have authority and what the government influence on its people and economy should be.

Along with a basic sociological and socio-anthropological classification, political systems can be classified on a social-cultural axis relative to the liberal values prevalent in the Western world, where the spectrum is represented as a continuum between political systems recognized as democracies, totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes, with a variety of hybrid regimes; and monarchies may be also included as a standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three.

Definition

According to David Easton, "A political system can be designated as the interactions through which values are authoritatively allocated for a society". Political system refers broadly to the process by which laws are made and public resources allocated in society, and to the relationships among those involved in making these decisions.

Basic classification

Social anthropologists generally recognize several kinds of political systems, often differentiating between ones that they consider uncentralized and ones they consider centralized.

Social political science

The sociological interest in political systems is figuring out who holds power within the relationship between the government and its people and how the government's power is used. According to Yale professor Juan José Linz, there are three main types of political systems today: democracies, totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes (with hybrid regimes). Another modern classification system includes monarchies as a standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three. Scholars generally refer to a dictatorship as either a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism.

Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people of a certain state. Under a narrow definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections, while broader definitions also link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights.

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law. Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party, the military, or the concentration of power in a single person. States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have sometimes been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.

Totalitarian

Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that completely controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. It is characterized by its prohibition of opposing political parties and its extreme suppression of opposition to the state.

Monarchy

A monarchy is a hereditary form of government in which political power is legally passed on to the family members of the monarch, a head of state who rules for life. While monarchs usually gain their power via various hereditary succession laws, they can also gain their authority via election by one or more electors.

Monarchies historically have been a common form of government. Nearly half of all independent states at the start of the 19th century were monarchies. After reaching a peak in the middle of the 19th century, the proportion of monarchies in the world has steadily declined. Republics replaced many monarchies, notably at the end of World War I and World War II.

Hybrid

A hybrid regime is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa). Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections.

According to some definitions and measures, hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Scholars use a variety of terms to encompass the "grey zones" between full autocracies and full democracies.[page needed] Such terms include: competitive authoritarianism, semi-authoritarianism, hybrid authoritarianism, electoral authoritarianism, liberal autocracy, delegative democracy, illiberal democracy, guided democracy, semi-democracy, deficient democracy, defective democracy, and hybrid democracy.
  2. ↑ Debates over what can be called "hybrid" still exist, see Hybrid regime § Definition.
  1. ↑ from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, from dēmos 'people' and krátos 'rule'

References

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  3. 1 2 3 Juan José Linz (2000). Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Lynne Rienner Publisher. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-55587-890-0. OCLC 1172052725.
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  8. ↑ Haviland, W.A. (2003). Anthropology: Tenth Edition. Wadsworth:Belmont, CA.
  9. ↑ Carneiro, Robert L. (2011). "The Chiefdom: Precursor of the State". In Jones, Grant D.; Kautz, Robert R. (eds.). The Transition to Statehood in the New World. New Directions in Archaeology. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 37–79. ISBN 978-0-521-17269-1.
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  21. ↑ Cerutti, Furio (2017). Conceptualizing Politics: An Introduction to Political Philosophy. Routledge. p. 17. Political scientists have outlined elaborated typologies of authoritarianism, from which it is not easy to draw a generally accepted definition; it seems that its main features are the non-acceptance of conflict and plurality as normal elements of politics, the will to preserve the status quo and prevent change by keeping all political dynamics under close control by a strong central power, and lastly, the erosion of the rule of law, the division of powers, and democratic voting procedures.
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  37. ↑ Göbel, Christian (2011). "Semiauthoritarianism". 21st Century Political Science: A Reference Handbook. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks California 91320 United States: SAGE Publications. pp. 258–266. doi:10.4135/9781412979351.n31. ISBN 978-1-4129-6901-7.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
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Further reading