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| A political system characterized by the centralization of power and the absence of effective representation in its component parts. Empires hold the peoples of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds together by coercion and threat of force. |
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| Leagues are political systems composed of states seeking to resist a common military or economic threat. Historic examples include the Achaean League of ancient Greece or the Hanseatic League of Europe. Most leagues include some form of agreement among member states and an assembly of representatives. |
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| These are voluntary associations of independent states that agree to certain limits on their freedom of action and establish some type of joint consultation or deliberation. Confederations usually fail to provide effective executive authority and lack strong central governments. The member states usually retain much power. Historic examples include the Swiss cantons, Articles of Confederation, the British Commonwealth, NATO, the European Union, and the U.N. |
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| Federal System or Federalism |
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| In federal systems, political power or authority is divided between two sets of governments, one national and one sub-national, both operate directly upon the people. Examples of federal systems include the United States, Brazil, Canada, Australia, Russia, Mexico, and India. |
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| Many political systems exist below the national level. Tribal communities, towns, cities, regions, and provinces are a few examples of sub-national systems. Most often these units are the foundation for national systems. |
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| A tribe or tribal community is a group organized in terms of kinship. It is perhaps the earliest form of human organization. Laws are often customs passed through oral tradition. Native American and African tribal groups are the best known, but the Lander of Germany and the clans of Scotland are other examples. |
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| City-States were political systems that evolved from the growth of cities with specialized trades and divisions of labor that allowed for an organized military. The empires of early Sumeria and Egypt were outgrowths of city-states. Two of the best known examples were Athens and Sparta of ancient Greece. During the Middle Ages and early Renaissance independent cities such as Venice, Florence, and Amsterdam had great power. |
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| Autocratic political systems have a concentration of power in a single center that could be an individual dictator or a group of power holders. The power of the center is absolute. Totalitarianism, tyrannies, and dictatorships are examples of autocracy. |
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A totalitarian government is an autocratic system that uses state power to impose an official ideology on its citizens. Nonconformity, protest, and resistance are not tolerated. A single party directed by a group loyal to the leadership is a typical feature. The totalitarian state pursues some special goal, such as industrialization or conquest, to the exclusion of all others. All resources are directed toward the attainment of the goals regardless of the cost. The obsession spawns an ideology that explains everything in terms of the goal, rationalizing all obstacles that may arise and all forces that may content with the state.
Under totalitarian rule, traditional social institutions and organizations are discouraged and suppressed: thus the social fabric is weakened and people become more amenable to absorption into a single, unified movement. Old religious and social ties are supplanted by artificial ties to the state and its ideology.
Large scale violence becomes permissible and sometimes necessary to maintain rule. The police with national or special forces are used to maintain party loyalty and to suppress any form of opposition. |
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| Democracy in simplest terms is rule by the people. Characteristics of democracies include periodic elections, free choice of candidates, adult suffrage, decisions by majority vote with protection of minority rights. Two major types of democracies are the true or direct democracy and the limited democracy. |
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| Direct democracy (true democracy) |
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| A direct democracy provides for decision making directly by the citizens or voters within an area, without an elected legislature. Certain aspects of ancient Athens reflected a direct democracy. The New England town meeting is another example of the direct democracy. By its nature a direct democracy must be composed of relatively small populace. |
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| In a representative democracy the will of the people is exercised through the election of governmental leaders who make and enforce laws. Officials are elected freely from a choice of candidates. Most representative democracies feature a constitution that outlines powers of the people and elected officials. |
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| Monarchies are political systems based upon the undivided sovereignty of a single person. The monarchy is one of the oldest ruling systems going back to antiquity. The power and functions of monarchies have changed over time. Many modern monarchs serve as a ceremonial head of state in a democratic or parliamentary state. |
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| Absolutism is the political doctrine and practice of unlimited, centralized authority and absolute sovereignty. The ruling power is not subject to challenge or regulation by any other agency, be it judicial, legislative, religious, economic, or electoral. |
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| The "divine right of kings" was a theory that asserted kings derived their ruling authority from God. This view was used to justify tyrannical rule as Godly punishment. |
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| The monarch acts as the head of state and a symbol of national authority. The monarch recognizes the political power of the people exercised by elected officials. The monarch symbolizes historical continuity. |
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| A dictatorship is a form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limits. The term comes from Latin, which in the Roman Republic designated a temporary magistrate who was granted extraordinary powers in order to deal with state crises. In the 19th century Latin American dictators were called caudillos. These men such as Santa Anna of Mexico and Rosas of Argentina led private armies to take control of a territory before marching upon the national government. Mussolini and Hitler established totalitarian dictatorships during the 20th century. Crucial elements of their dictatorships included identification of the state with a single party, the use of official ideology to legitimize and maintain power, the use of terror and propaganda to control opposition, and the use of science and technology to control the economy and individual behavior. |
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| Authoritarianism is the principle of blind submission to authority, as opposed to individual freedom of thought and action. It denotes any political system that concentrates power in the hands of a leader or small elite that is not constitutionally responsible to the people. Authoritarian leaders often exercise power arbitrarily without regard to existing bodies of law. |
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| Communism is the political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of the major means of production and the natural resources of a society. It is a form of socialism based upon the work Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles and refined by Vladimir Lenin. In the 20th century it was distinguished by single party rule with no toleration for opposition. A command economy in which the state and bureaucrats controlled property, wages, prices and production goals. It roots come from a variety of sources including the New Testament, Thomas More's Utopia, and especially Marx's Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital. |
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| Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels put forth their criticisms of capitalism and sketch of a future communist society in The Communist Manifesto. They maintained that the poverty, disease, and early death that afflicted the proletariat were endemic to capitalism. The only way to solve the problems was replacing capitalism with communism. |
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| Marx presented much of the foundation of communism in his work Das Kapital. His theory has three main aspects: first a materialist conception of history; second, a critique of capitalism and its inner workings; and third, an account of the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and its eventual replacement by communism. |
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| Fascism was a political ideology and mass movement that dominated many parts of Europe in the between 1919 and 1945. The name comes from the Latin word fasces, which referred to a bundle of elm or birch rods containing an ax used as a symbol of authority in ancient Rome. Common characteristics of fascist governments included extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy an political and cultural liberalism, a belief in a natural social hierarchy with rule by the elites, and a desire to create a peoples community where individual desires are subordinated to the good of the nation. Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Greece, and Spain had some form of fascist rule prior to WW II. Fascists were united by their opposition to Marxism and democracy. Most fascist governments became totalitarian regimes with imperialistic aims. Fascists used mass meetings, parades, and other gatherings to win popular support and to consolidate their power. Fascists used the mass media of the age to spread propaganda of the transformation of the "new man," to glorify youth, for scapegoating others, and to indoctrinate to new members. Violence against opponents was a common feature among fascists. |
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| Oligarchy is a government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Aristotle used the term to designate rule of the few when it was exercised not by the best but by bad men unjustly. Most classic oligarchies have resulted when governing elites were recruited exclusively from a ruling class based upon heredity, religion, prestige, or other concerns. Robert Michels used the therm the "iron law of oligarchy" to refer to the tendency of political parties and trade unions to become bureaucratic, centralized, and conservative -- no matter what their original goals may be. The power of industrialists within the government is often cited as a form of oligarchy. |
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| Socialism is a social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Everything people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society, as a whole should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. It is in opposition to capitalism and socialists complain that capitalism leads to unfair and exploitative concentrations of wealth and power in the hands of a relative few who then dominate society. |
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| Socialist Fundamental Differences |
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| 1. Socialists differ over the extent and kind of property that society should own or control. Some believe everything other than clothing should be public property and others accept private ownership of farms, shops, and small business. 2. Socialists also disagree about the way in which society should exercise control of property and other resources. Centralist want to invest control in a central authority such as the state. Decentralists want decisions made by the people who are most directly affected by those decisions. |
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| The origins of socialism lie in the Industrial Revolution. By 1830 the term socialist applied to those opposing capitalism. Robert Owen and others sought to improve the lives of workers through cooperative communities and cooperative businesses. |
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| Marx Theory on the Fall of Capitalism |
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| Once the worker class, the proletariat, become aware of their oppression by the bourgeoisie, the workers will overthrow the bourgeoisie in a series of spontaneous uprisings, seizing control of factories, mines, railroads, and other means of production, until the have gained control of the government and converted it into a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat. Under socialism government itself will eventually wither away as the people gradually lose the selfish attitudes fostered by private ownership of production. Freed from necessity and exploitation, people will finally live in a true community that gives "each individual the means of cultivating his gifts in all directions." |
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| A state where only property owners may participate in government is a timocracy. In another form it is a government in which love of honor is the ruling principle. Solon introduced this form of rule and both Plato and Aristotle wrote about it. |
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| Anarchism is the cluster of beliefs and attitudes that government is both harmful and unnecessary. It is derived from the Greek root (anarchos) meaning "without authority." The origins of anarchist movement go back to the English Civil Wars, the French writer and socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and the Russian activist Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin held that religion, capitalism, and the state are forms of repression that must be smashed if people are ever to be free. |
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