POLI 111: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Session Two: Basic Concepts of Politics, Part 1

Lecturer: Dr. Evans Aggrey-Darkoh,

Department of Political Science

Contact information : aggreydarkoh@ug.edu.gh

Session Overview

• Concepts are building blocks of knowledge

• Like any branch of human endeavor or knowledge,

politics also has its own essential vocabulary

• In this session, we are going to cover some of the

fundamental concepts of politics

• These are sometimes abstract models or ideal types

which only approximate to the reality they help to

understand

Section Outline

In this session, four fundamental concepts of politics are

discussed. These are:

• power

• authority

• legitimacy

• Order

Reading List

• Chapter 1 of Magstadt T.M. & Schotten P. M. (1996).

Understanding Politics: Ideas, Institutions, and Issues. New

York: St. Martin’s Press.

• Chapter 1 Roskin M.G. et. al. (1991). Political Science: An

Introduction 4th Ed. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall International

Inc., 1991).

Topic One

Power

What is Political Power?

• Political power is the most central concept in politics

• Power is so central to the understanding of politics

that fierce controversy surrounds its meaning

• Power has sometimes been misused by politicians for

their selfish interests

• Because of the misuse and sometimes abuse of power,

there remains widespread concern about its use

• Such concerns are particularly apparent in deep and

recurrent disagreements about the distribution of

power within the state

What is Political Power? (cont’d)

• Certain key questions must be pondered over as you

go through this concept. These include:

– Is power distributed widely and evenly dispersed

among the various segments of society?

– Is power concentrated in the hands of few, a power

elite, or ruling class?

– Is a political power essentially benign, enabling

people to achieve their collective goals?,

– Is it a form of oppression or domination?

• In the words of Lord Acton “Power tends to corrupt

and absolute power corrupt absolutely”

What is Political Power? (cont’d)

• The word “power” comes from the Latin word

“potere” meaning “to be able”

• In its broadest sense, power is being able to,

physically or intellectually or both, to achieve what

one want

• Some may use force or coercion to get what they want

• Others may control others through sheer intellectual

superiority

What is Political Power? (cont’d)

• In a more specific sense, power is the ability to cause others to do what one desires using means ranging from influence to coercion

• According Robert Dahl, power is a question of who gets their way, how often they get their way, and over what issues they get their way

• To Andrew Heywood, power is the ability to achieve a desired outcome through whatever means

• Power is the means through which the struggle over scarce resources is conducted

• Heywood maintains that in politics, power is usually thought of as a relationship, that is as the ability of influencing the behavior of others in a manner not of their choosing

Resources of Power

• Individuals and groups who exercise political power exhibit certain characteristics. While some are material and easily identified, others are more subtle

• These characteristics include:

– wealth

– weaponry

– access to force (military and police)

– communication skills

– social status and high education

– good personality

– reputation for making good judgment and personal charisma or magnetism

Authority

• Authority is the right to rule

• It exists when subordinates acknowledge the right of

superiors to give orders

• Authority confers legitimacy on power

• Authority is legitimized power

• Whereas power is the ability to influence the behavior

of others, authority is the right to do so

Authority (cont’d)

• Authority is based on an acknowledged duty to obey

rather than on any form of coercion or manipulation

• Authority is government’s power to make binding

decisions and issue obligatory commands

• To acknowledge the authority of rulers does not mean

that you agree with their decision. It means only that

you accept their right to make decisions and your duty

to obey them

Authority (cont’d)

• Authority is also the right or the capacity or both to

have proposals or prescriptions or instructions

accepted without recourse to persuasion, bargaining,

or force

• Authority is critical to the practice of government in

that in the absence of willing compliance,

governments can only maintain order by the use of

fear, intimidation, and violence

• This situation may be the case of the existence of

power without authority

Authority (cont’d)

• Governments have the authority to maintain domestic

stability and promote the public the public good.

• Citizens obey laws because they agree that their

government has the authority to make decisions

Types of Authority-Traditional

Authority According to a German sociologist, Max Weber, authority

stems from three main sources:

1.In traditional authority, authority is rooted in custom and history

•Deference and obedience is owed because of the bloodline

• It is mostly gained through inheritance as in the case of dynasties, monarchies, or chieftaincy institutions

• In traditional authority, the present is viewed as sacrosanct, eternal, and inviolable

•The dominant person or group, usually defined by heredity is thought to have been pre-ordained to rule over the rest

Legal-Rational Authority

Legal-rational authority is also called bureaucratic

authority

Under this type, authority is vested in the office held

by the individual and the mechanisms that placed

them there and not the person

It is a type of authority that place emphasis on office

and functions and not personalities

Legal-rational authority is the direct opposite of the

charismatic authority

Charismatic Authority

• The word ‘charisma’ is of Christian origin and it refers to divinely bestowed power

• It is a form of “gift of grace,” reflected in the power which Jesus the Christ exerted over his disciples

• Historical examples of charismatic leaders include, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Adolf Hitler, Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela, etc.

• This type of authority stems from personality

• It is based on popular admiration for the personal heroic qualities of the individual in whom it is vested

Charismatic Authority (cont’d)

•Here leaders are obeyed because they inspire their

followers, who normally credit the leaders with

exceptional qualities

•Charismatic leadership is inherently short-lived unless

the authority figure can transfer his authority into a

more permanent office or institution. This process is

called “routinization of charisma”

Circumstances Surrounding

the Exercise of Authority •Herbert Simon described the circumstances surrounding the exercise of power as “Sanctions of Authority.” He provided five reasons to explain why subordinates obey their superiors

1. Social Sanctions: society normally sets standards of behavior expected of its members and sanctions those who undermine these standards

2. Psychological Differences: some people have the personality to lead, while others follow. There is therefore, flow of authority in a superior-subordinate relationship

Circumstances Surrounding

the Exercise of Authority (cont’d) 3. Purpose: In situations where the members of an organization are committed to the purpose that organization serves, they are willing to obey commands

4. Job, Economic Security, and Status: As long as obedience is the surest way to secure ones job, economic security, and status, obedience is readily provided.

5. Acceptance of Responsibility: Given certain jobs, some people prefer to be directed rather than making the decision themselves

Limits and Use of Authority

• Authority in a given area is limited, however, authority

can be used to:

1.Enforce conformity with the laid down rules

2.Secure expertise in the making of decisions

3.Ensure the coordination of activities

Legitimacy

• The term legitimacy (from the Latin legitimere,

meaning to declare lawful), broadly means rightfulness

• Legitimacy is a property that a regime’s procedures for

making and enforcing laws are acceptable to its

subjects or citizens

• The ability to issue commands which are seen as

binding because they are legitimate is one of the

central pillars of a stable political order

Legitimacy (cont’d)

•According to Heywood, legitimacy is the quality that

transforms naked power into rightful authority; it

confers upon an order or command, an authoritative

binding character, ensuring that, it is obeyed out of

duty rather than because of fear

• In Ghana, people may obey the laws or commands of

President Mahama not out of fear but by virtue of the

fact that he has the authority to rule

Legitimacy (cont’d)

• There is a close relationship between legitimacy and

authority. The two terms are sometimes used

synonymously

• People are said to have authority, whereas it is a

political system or a regime that is described as

legitimate

• In absence of legitimacy, government can only be

sustained by fear, intimidation and violence

• As J. J. Rousseau put it “The strongest is never strong

enough to be always the master unless he transforms

strength into right and obedience into duty”

Legitimacy (cont’d)

In a book “The legitimation of Power (1961),” David

Beetham maintains that power can only be legitimate

if three conditions are fulfilled. These are:

• Power must be exercised according to established

rules either in legal codes or informal conventions

• These rules must be justified in terms of the shared

beliefs of the government and governed

• Legitimacy must be demonstrated by the expression of

consent on the part of the governed

How do Regimes Loose their

Legitimacy? • Most empires are hardly ever accepted as legitimate

by their subjects

• Political regimes begin to lose legitimacy when rulers

start to doubt the beliefs and values justifying their

rule

• When the regime consistently fails to address certain

fundamental rights in the society, like the right to

life, liberty, and property

How Regimes Achieve Legitimacy

• When a government exist for a long time. Long

established governments are generally well respected

by their citizens

• A government can also gain legitimacy by governing

well by providing for the needs of the people

Influence

• Influence is the capacity of actors to determine partly

the actions or choices of other actors within the set of

action or choice of alternatives available to those

actors

• Influence occurs wherever behavior leads to change in

behavior

• It has been argued by Lasswell and Kaplan (1950, p.76)

that “it is the threat of sanctions which differentiates

power from influence in general”

Influence (cont’d)

• Influence can be characterized as the possibility to determine the outcomes of behaviors of others, without the restriction or expansion of their freedom of action

• The exercise of influence takes place mainly by means of persuasion, information, and advice

• The most important, if not the only, source of influence is in particular associated with strategic locations in the communication and information networks that other actors use for the determination of their behavior

Relation Between

Influence and Power

• In principle, we can conceive power to exist without

influence

• Influence is power in action

• Though the two are very similar, power and influence

are different concepts

• Thus, power is the capacity to exercise influence

Relation Between

Influence and Power (cont’d)

• There are roughly two reasons why it is difficult

to distinguish between power and influence in

practical situations

– Power can be a source of influence and influence a

source of power

– Processes occur whereby positions of influence are

transformed into positions of power or conversely,

positions of power into positions of influence