Political Authority and Social Stability
◦The breakdown of political authority can have devastating consequences
◦Thomas Hobbes: the result of no political authority is ceaseless war of all against all
◦According to Hobbes, the basic forces of human nature that make the state of nature
so ugly exist below the surface of any political system
System Breakdowns
◦Rwanda, 1994
▪Tutsi and Hutu
▪US didn't get involved, probably should have (according to Dr. Martin)
◦Yugoslavia, 1991
◦USSR, 1991
◦East Germany, 1989
◦Romania, 1989
▪leader was messed up
Democracy
Kinds of political Systems
◦Political processes decentllized and flexible
◦Special groups articulate group decisions
◦Founding Fathers believed in absolute truth, current America does not
▪Nuremburg
Defense – who are you to impose your morals?
Prosecution – used natural law to argue
▪Ted Bundy – serial killer, claimed that he should be free to do whatever he wanted
▪John Adams said Constitution was made for a moral people
◦Liberal democracies – secure the rights of its people and to promote their liberty
and freedoms
Different kinds of rights
◦Natural rights
▪Founders understood that rights are from God – Govt can't grant them, nor
do they have the authority to deny them. The govt can only “secure” our
rights
◦Civil rights
◦Political rights
Authoritarian systematic
◦Greater control of political process
◦leaders places power on military, relgion
◦often 1 party
Totalitarian
◦traditional institutions uprooted
◦all beliefs + value subordinate to state
◦Elements:
▪official ideology
▪command economy
▪monopoly of mass media
▪monopoly on effective force
▪terror directed against arbitrarily selected components of society
▪Propoganda
How political scientists work
Empirical – observable data
Normative – emphasize values
We have both today
What is political theory?
Throughout much of its existence, philosophy was seen as a search for truth; more reent
thinkers have argues the philosophy is just a process for clarifying approaches to
problems
“product” of philosophy now is questions, not answers – effects of postmodernism
are detrimental to the study of political thought
political theory – a guide to political action and public policy
◦explanation of political behavior and the exercise of power
Forms of political power:
difference between layperson and intelligent person? Latter has more knowledge of
the process
Jean-Paul Sartre – those with power decide who will live and who will die
◦Obama's healthcare, killing elderly and saying life starts at 2
Authoritative power – enjoyed by elected officials
Coercive – threat or use of force
Political influence of persuasion – media, church, family
Political manipulation – unabtrusive, diverting attention
Scope of political theory
Political Philosophy – those who have placed the study of politics in the broadest
context have generally been philosophers first and students of poitics second
◦Plato, Hegel, and John Dewey considered epistemology and ethics, with
implications for politics
Systematic Political Theory – different from political philosophy. Political theorists
study politics as their first concern; not looking for broad questions of truth (or, they put
it in the context of their time and culture)
Ideology – less analytical than philosophy or political theory; commonly held belief,
not of a scholar (Reagan, FDR, Mao)
Empirical Political Theory – focus on quantitative data; supposed to be neutral, but
social sciences are never neutral
