Autocratic Government

Autocratic Government

By: Krisna Mendoza

    Autocratic government has its own fragilities. On this chapter we look at two aspects. Look at some mayor forms of autocratic government and explore the sources of their fragility and success. What is autocracy? the autocratic alternatives to democracy are by no means of one piece.

     The union of soviet socialist republic decisions were made collectively within the party, with strong leadership by the party head and great deal of influence from such groups or army. Pakistan has a history of sporadic, brief democratic rule punctuated by military takeovers has not been good for the country. Saudi Arabia was an absolute monarchy for most of the twentieth century , with power lodge in the Saud family. Democratic republic of Congo became independent from Belgium. These are examples of autocratic systems. First they are varied politically and second many autocracies are not organized stably.

Military government the military in any state control more armed power than anyone else. If they choose, as group, to oust the exiting government there is no one who can stop them. Civilian governments must depend for their reluctance to take over the government. All three would from time to time fail and that the military would break out in a coup.

A military government takes power through no regular process but simply seized it, so how can it claimed that no other group should be similar. A democratic government is legitimized by the rules of succession on which is based; a communist government is legitimized by Lenin's theory. Another problem of most military governments is that while their leaders may be skilled politically, there is little in the profession for which they have been trained that makes this likely. As the result of the problem, purely military governments are actually rather fragile.

    One party states, most autocracies are not straight military government but one party state. The one party state is distinguished by the fact that the government is based on and supports a political party that is the only party allowed in the state. One party arrangement have often had their origins in military coups. What distinguished these states from other autocratic system, especially from straight forward military governments, is the existence of a reasonably large national political party that bolters the government,  is the existence of a reasonably large national political party. A national party is likely to embrace at least a reasonable range of the social groups in a state.

     Court politics a characteristic of many autocratic especially of monarchies and of personal dictatorship like that which the Duvalier family exercised in Haiti from 1957 to 1986, but also of many military governments and one party states. Some examples would be the power held by Hitler in Nazi Germany, Stroessner in Paraguay, Duvalier in Haiti and Khomeini in Iran. Court politics is usually marked by: less emphasized on the rule of the law and more arbitrary whim of the ruler, politic is based on competing force and heavy competition by other figures for access to the leader.

      The One party governments often see themselves as pursuing communal objectives and develop organizational mechanisms for bringing a wide spectrum of opinion to bear on the governments decisions. The autocratic alternative is quite a diverse thing and not necessarily stable.  A number of autocratic states have set up institutions of politics, especially through a single party governments. Court politics a characteristic of many autocratic especially of monarchies and of personal dictatorship. Most autocracies are not straight military government but one party state.

Democracy and its Recent Surge in the World

Democracy and its Recent Surge in the World

By: Krisna Mendoza

     What is a liberal democracy? It divides in two components the democratic institutions and the political rights.  Only a small number of the world’s democracies are stable and groups must agree to accept the democratic bargain. There are different explanations for democracy’s recent surge.  One explanation is in the relationship between democracy and individual freedom and democracy and capitalism.

      The institutional component also called democratic hardware consists of: fair and institutionalized elections, self- initiated and controlled interest groups, autonomous and strong multi- party system, autonomous and self- regulated means of mass communication, mutual balance and checks among the three mayor branches of government, peaceful and periodic alternation of power and constitutional and legal system that guarantees equality and rule of law.  The second one is the liberal rights and freedom entail that talks about the freedoms of thoughts, association, speech, petition, participation, run for office and other personal freedoms such as the right of abortion, homosexual practices, non-religious beliefs, etc. These two types of components are germane to each other in liberal societies.

    The third wave of democratization is a book by Huntington that he identifies a wave of democratization as a group of transitions from nondemocratic to democratic regimes that occur within a specific period of time. In the first wave of democratization during the years 1828 to1926. On a long period of time USA, Britain, Argentina, France and Italy became democracies. During the years 1922 to 1942 Italy, Germany and Argentina backed down to totalitarianism. On the second wave of democratization West Germany, Italy, Japan, India and Israel moved to democracy. The third wave of democratization is from 1974 till now countries such as Portugal, Spain, most Asia, East Africa, European and Latin American moved to democracy.

       There are four possible explanations for democracy: Fatigue of some authoritarian regimes, international pressures, people’s desire for security against arbitrary abuse and people’s desire for economic development. Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism these terms are used to describe tyranny, absolutism, dictatorship, monocracy they all are used to describe non- democracies.  Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy is a book by Carl Friedrich that identifies the six characteristics of totalitarianism that are: an official ideology directed to perfectionist end which is required for mobilization of masses, a single mass party led by an individual, a technically assisted monopoly of control of weapons, monopoly of the means of mass communication which is used for mass mobilization, the application of terror as a means of police control,  and the central direction of the economy. 

     There are Crisis and Non- crisis transitions. The Crisis transitions are the east European transitions on 1989- 1991, The ruling authoritarian governments often has little credibility or capacity to influence the path of transition, no place for pacts with the opposition, democracy will be open to all political parties and movement of the left without mayor constraints. The non – crisis transitions are Asian transitions of Thailand and Korea in addition to Spain, Turkey and Chile, huge influence for old regime and military; the resulting democracies have had to constantly look over their shoulders to see how the military viewed decisions, possible pacts, some constraints on who legally participate in politics may apply.

        In this chapter there are different possible explanations for democracy’s recent surge. A book of third democratization people can see how through years countries have become democratize. The crisis and non crisis tell people how the transitions from democratize and no democratize has worked.

Authority and Legitimacy

Authority and Legitimacy

By: Krisna Mendoza

     Authority is the government power. Authority can be used in many ways like some people used it to force other people to do things they don’t want to do but in politics authority is based in two general agreements. The first agreement is that a person or a group has the right to issue certain sort of commands. The second one is that those commands should be obeyed.

     In society, many people or individuals may have few amount of authority in some way but states and governments have the highest authority in a society. So authority is socially accepted. In some cases governments have no limits on their authority, there are called self – imposed limits on the authority. Two important self imposed limits are: constitutions and the principle of separation of powers. Authority is backed by the threat of coercion or by persuasion.

     The mass feeling that the governmental authority is rightful and should be obeyed is called legitimacy. There are four sources of legitimacy: by result, by habit, by historical, religious or ethnic identity and by procedure.  The first one is legitimacy by result this provides the basic needs of an individual such as welfare, security and the respect of human rights. An example would be Hitler achieved this legitimacy by getting big amount of employment and a god economic growth. The second one is by habit and is that people through time get used to obey the laws of the government. An example is that a government remains legitimate unless a compelling alternative comes along.

    The third one is by historical, religious or ethnic identity.  This means that legitimacy can come from various historical, religious or ethnic sources. George Washington is called “father of his country”, the congress party in India and the National liberation front in Algeria are examples of historical role that retained the ruling of high level of legitimacy.  The last one is legitimacy by procedure that is procedures that can promote and provide legitimacy. An example is in democracies when rulers are chosen by people for a certain period.

        The democratic citizen should have four qualities that are: tolerance, active participation, high level of interest and information and support for the state. How well are these requirements met in modern democracies? Tolerance is pretty low in modern democracies, an active participation by voting regularly, people have high level of interest and a lot of information and gets a lot support of the state with different services.

Social capital is the voluntary involvement in organizations that increase people’s tolerance, information, active participation, security, welfare and respect of human rights.  If many people volunteer and participate in civic engagements this would make a huge impact on the efficiency of democracy.  The political culture consists of beliefs that form the basis of political behavior. This very complex topic but political history is like history, it changes slowly and help us understand the context of political decisions and choices.  Religion is an important part of political culture, because is set of ideas about our creation and the ethical and moral imperatives that flow from that relationship.

      The political socialization is when people acquire and accumulate their values and assumptions about politics through it.  Political socialization is a learning process that most of the political values are learned in the early adulthood by the older people. There are various agents of socialization like family, school and peer groups.

This chapter talks about mainly of authority and legitimacy. For a state to function effectively need both authority and legitimacy. The ideal “democratic citizen” needs tolerance, active participation, interest of information and support of the state to be effective. And religion is considered a political culture.