Political institutions:

Definition:

An institution is a stable cluster of values, norms, statuses, rules and groups that develops around a basic social need.

Examples: Government, political parties, trade unions, and the (legal) courts.

Power and authority:

Power:

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

Brute force is most basic form of power. The rule of Saddam Hussain was criticized as brutal toward anyone who did not comply with the will of the leader.

Examples: Students try to gain the favor of their teachers; workers try to gain favor of their bosses. Ever have a struggle over the remote control to the TV. These are attempts to gain power.

Authority:

Authority is the power that people consider legitimate, as rightly exercised over them; also called legitimate power.

Examples: Military officers, police officer, judge.

Types of Authority:

Traditional Authority:

 The first type of authority is traditional authority, which derives from long-established customs, habits and social structures. When power passes from one generation to another then it is called traditional authority. Traditional authority is power that is rooted in traditional, or long-standing, beliefs and practices of a society.

Example: The Tudor dynasty in England and the ruling families of Mewar, in India are examples of traditional authority.

1) Rational-Legal Authority:

It is also called bureaucratic authority. Weber defined it as the power legitimized by legally enacted rules and regulations.

Rational-legal authority helps ensure an orderly transfer of power in a time of crisis.

The authority of deans and classroom teachers for example, rests on the offices they hold in bureaucratic colleges and universities. The police are, too officers within the bureaucracy of local government.

Examples: Government officials. When Richard Nixon resigned his office in disgrace in 1974 because of his involvement in the Watergate scandal, Vice President Gerald Ford became president.  Because the U.S. Constitution provided for the transfer of power when the presidency was vacant, and because U.S. leaders and members of the public accept the authority of the Constitution on these and so many other matters, the transfer of power in 1963 and 1974 was smooth and orderly.

2) Charismatic Authority:

Charismatic authority is power legitimated through extraordinary personal abilities that inspire devotion and obedience. Unlike its traditional and rational-legal counterparts, then, charismatic authority depends less on a person’s ancestry or office and more on individual personality.

Examples: NT Rama Rao, a matinee idol, who went on to become one of the most powerful Chief Ministers of Andhra Pradesh. Other examples of charismatic leaders include Jesus of Nazareth, Nazi, Germany’s Adolf Hitler, liberator of India Mahatma Gandhi and civil rights Dr Martin Luther King Jri.

3) Political system:

A system involving government and its politics which includes the members who are in power within a country.

Example: Government.

Types of Political Systems:

There are three types of political systems that sociologist consider.

1) Monarchy:

Monarchy is a political system in which power resides in a single family that rules from one generation to the next generation. The power the family enjoys is traditional authority.

Monarchy was typical in ancient agrarian societies, the Bible, for example, tells of great kings such as David and Solomon. In world today, 28 nations have royal families. Some trace their ancestry back for centuries.

Royal families still rule today, but their power has declined from centuries ago. Today the queen of England holds a largely ceremonial position.

2) Democracy:

Democracy is a type of political system that gives power to the people as a whole.

The type of government with which we are most familiar is democracy, or a political system in which citizen govern themselves either directly or indirectly.

The term democracy comes from Greek and means “rule of the people”.

In direct (or pure) democracies, people make their own decisions about the policies and about the distribution of resources that affect them directly.

The defining feature of representative democracy is voting in elections.

Democracies are certainly not perfect. Their decision-making process can be quite slow and inefficient; as just mentioned, decisions may be made for special interests and not “for the people”; and pervasive inequalities of social class, race and ethnicity, gender, and age can exist.

Example: It is in action in New England town meeting, where the residents of a town meet once a year and vote budgetary and other matters.

3) Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism:Authoritarianism:

Authoritarianism is a political system that denies popular participation in government. It refers to political systems in which an individual or a group of individuals holds power, restricts or prohibits popular participation in governance, and represses dissent.Example: Saddam Hussain imprisoned tortured or murdered thousands of people who resisted his rule.

Totalitarianism: It is a highly centralized political system that extensively regulates people’s life. It refers to political systems that include all the features of authoritarianism but are even more repressive as they try to regulate and control all aspects of citizens’ lives and fortunes. People can be imprisoned for deviating from acceptable practices or may even be killed if they dissent in the mildest of ways.

It is most intensely controlled political form. Example: The government of former Soviet Union, for example, did not permit ordinary citizens to own telephone directions.

Political Revolution:Political revolution is the over throw of one political system in order to establish

another.Example: Revolution in Egypt.

Terrorism:

Terrorism refers to the act of violence or the threat of such violence used as a political strategy by an individual or a group.

The use of violence or the threat of violence to produce fear in order to attain political objectives is called terrorism.

In the wake of terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, a number of U.S. political leaders have said that the United States is now engaged a “new kind of war”. American nuclear strategy during the Cold War was designed to deter the Soviet Union from attacking the United States and its allies by threatening it with nuclear destruction. Although intended as a defensive measure, the United States would still have killed astronomical numbers of civilians in a nuclear exchange. During World War II, civilians in the cities of Dresden, Tokyo and London endured carpet bombing attacks that incinerated tens of thousands. And in August 1945, the United States attacked civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic weapons. Thus targeting civilians for attack does not make terrorism a “new kind of war.” What about the claim that terrorists “hide behind civilians?” Does that make this a new kind of war? This claim presumes that the recent attacks on New York City and Washington were committed by a transnational organization. But it is hard to imagine that such a sophisticated, coordinated attack could have occurred without the support of a state. The common characteristic of the states on the current State Department list of terrorism sponsors is that they are weak states with international goals hostile to those of the United States. They choose a strategy of terrorism because they are too weak to attack us in a more conventional manner. The common bond of these states is found in their weakness and hostility, not Islamic fundamentalism or other ideology. No, terrorism is not a new kind of war, nor is it a new kind of war for the United States. What is new is that the United States is finally treating terrorism as the act of war it truly is and always has been, instead of as a “mere” criminal action.