Politics

Politics is about living together in communities. As "social animals", humans have always tended to form groups, the better to enjoy the benefits of cooperation and mutual defence; and groups have  merged to form tribes, city-states and nation-states. The subject-matter of politics includes relations within and between those groups, beliefs concerning the proper  conduct of those relations, and  systems and institutions  for regulating that conduct.

Freedom of choice
The fundamental political question  is why an individual should submit to restraints imposed upon him by others. The philosopher Isaiah Berlin has termed such submission the relinquishment of "negative freedom" in order to achieve "positive freedom" - a submission that is analogous to  the exercise of  self-discipline in order to accomplish a task. His answer to that question was that external restraints are accepted  in order  to gain the advantages of cooperation and mutual defence, and he claimed that to be the motivational basis of politics. The concept of a collective voluntary agreement for that purpose, which had been formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the Social contract  was a fiction, which, however, provided the basis for an examination of ways  of choosing the terms of that  implicit political  agreement. In the middle ages, the prevailing social ideology had precluded the possibility of any departure from existing conventions, but the philosophers of the enlightenment advocated a variety of alternative  political systems, some of which have since been adopted. It is now generally accepted that the true test of any political system is whether its advantages justify the sacrifices of individual freedom that it requires.

The functions of ideology
A widely accepted set of beliefs  about social behaviour may be termed an ideology if its rationale is known, or a myth if it is not. The term ideology is often associated in people’s minds with dogmatism and intolerance, but in fact, every society has needed a set  of shared assumptions to provide it with a settled view  about living together. That settled view has typically included conscious beliefs that are topics of everyday discussion, and subconscious attitudes that are seldom examined. It has enabled generally acceptable outcomes to be achieved without debating their underlying rationale. But what group members have considered to be a prized tradition, may  have appeared  to outsiders to be an irrational ideology.

Social ideologies
Myths and ideologies about personal status and the nature of authority are part of the foundation of every political ideology. For example, the medieval myth of "the Chain of Being" which defined the hierarchical  status of every living thing, was the foundation of feudalism, and its subconscious influence is believed to underlie  more recent attitudes to race and gender. And in the nineteenth century, the myth of "the ladder of life" which envisaged evolution as generating a  process  in which each emerging  type of human being is an improvement on its predecessor, was the rationale for a political ideology of  the survival of the fittest  known as "Social Darwinism". The formation of groups has led to “we/they” myths about the superiority of members over non-members  and the creation of ethnic and  nationalist ideologies.

Political ideologies
Several political ideologies have made repeated appearances over the course of history. Authoritarianism, in the form of government by a trained elite, was advocated in the 4th century BCE by Plato, it was advocated in the 17th century  by Thomas Hobbes  as the need for a controlling authority to prevent the chaos of  a  “war of all against all”,  and it emerged again in the 20th century as the philosophy of Nazism. Democracy, in the form that gave every citizen a right to participate in every communal decision, made a brief appearance in Pericles’ Athens in the 6th century BCE, but was rejected in that form for centuries thereafter. In particular, the founders of the United States constitution rejected it in favour of "representation ingrafted upon democracy" as advocated in Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man. The concept of Representative Government, in which the people delegate decision-making powers to an authority on condition that it acts in their interest, had been put forward in the 17th century in the second of John Locke’s treatises On Civil Government and was further  developed  in the 19th century in John Stuart Mill’s Representative Government. The ideology of Socialism, as the belief  that all property should be communally owned, was put forward in the 16th century in Thomas More’s Utopia ; publicised in the early 19th century by Henri de Saint-Simon and developed into an influential creed in Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. . The ideologies of Liberalism and Libertarianism are concerned to preserve individual freedom from state interference. Liberals, such as Friedrich von Hayek , acknowledge the need to impose charges for public goods, whereas some Libertarians such as Robert Nozick are incined to question the need to do so. In opposition to those beliefs, the ideology  of Communitarianism  that was put forward by Amitai Etzioni,   lays greater emphasis upon the contribution of community activity to individual welfare.

Legitimacy
The sources of government legitimacy according to the German sociologist Max Weber are charisma, tradition and legality. At a more fundamental level, a government's legitimacy depends upon its continuing ability to perform its side of what is perceived to be the "social contract". Legitimacy once conferred, can be withdrawn for inadequate performance, loss of trust or a change in the public’s interpretation of the contract. In chaotic situations, such as that of Germany at the end WW1, legitimacy can be conferred by a successful undertaking to restore order, but can subsequently be withdrawn if the restoration of order ceases to be considered an adequate recompense for hardship or  loss of freedom. Trust can be lost because of what is seen to be misrepresentation,  or because of  the perceived misappropriation  of the community resources by what is termed rent-seeking. Legitimacy is lost by action that is contrary to domestic or international law (although some legal theorists consider international law to be no more than a non-binding system of settling disputes ).

Decision-making
Government conduct has been  influenced as much by  decision-making rationales as by  ideologies -  there have been  tyrannical  democracies and benevolent despotisms. It might appear rational for every government decision to be based upon an evaluation of its expected consequences - a rationale that is termed consequentialism -  but that  rationale is far from being the general rule. Governments have, to varying extents, been influenced by deontism, that is to say by what they perceive to be  principles specifying  actions  that must always to be done or  must always  be avoided. Some such principles originate from religious codes such as the Ten Commandments or the Moslem Sharia, and some are socially-determined  concepts of rights, obligations and duties, such as equity,  fair dealing  and family reponsibilities. Consequentialist acceptance of such principles is conditional upon the absence of  significantly  harmful  consequences, but  deontist acceptance is absolute and without exception. The governing principle known as paternalism substitutes the government’s perception of desirable outcomes for that of the governed, either for deontist reasons, or on the ground that the government has the better understanding of the true interests of the governed. At the other extreme is governing behaviour known as populism, under which decisions are influenced by transitory or ill-informed surges of public opinion. Utilitarianism as put forward by John Stuart Mill,  treats all of those influences as aberrations, and advocates decision-making that is directed solely at the improvement of the welfare of those affected as they themselves see it. Under that theory, individuals are deemed to delegate to government the responsibility for determining the material consequences of alternative actions, but  are themselves deemed to  be  the sole judge of the resulting social consequences. That theory is in turn rejected in John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice according to which decisions should conform to the "difference principle" which permits  only those  inequalities of welfare  that benefit the least well-off in the community. Dissenting also from that theory, the philosopher Robert Nozick has argued that each individual has an inalienable right to his own abilities and creations, making it ethically unacceptable for a government to seek to re-allocate the resulting  benefits. The assumption that governments govern on behalf of the governed, is in any case  challenged by  the Theory of Public Choice. That theory assumes that the actions of politicians and civil servants are directed by economic motives, and that they are thus influenced more by self-interest than by a wish to serve the public.

Current forms of government
The various modern forms of government have been categorised in a variety of ways but their most important characteristics concern the  accountability of their  decision-makers. Accountability is what distinguishes personal- and party-autocracies (such as Saudi Arabia and China) from democracies (such as the United States and the countries of Europe). While it is not impossible for autocracies to perform the functions of representative government, they have little incentive to do so. Whereas the citizens of autocracies can do nothing to influence the conduct of government, the citizens of democracies can exert a degree of influence through their electoral systems. The existence of constitutional arrangements for the election of representatives does not, however, guarantee accountability (such arrangements exist in Cuba, for example). The reality depends upon the powers and duties of the elected representatives. Parliamentary democracies whose constitutions follow the example of the Westminster Model (such as Canada and India) give the elected representatives both legislative powers and the ultimate sanction of the collective ability to dismiss the government, but often  leave a  government that has a large parliamentary with a substantial degree of autonomy. Countries whose constitutions follow the example of the United States Constitution give executive responsibilities to an elected president, and give an elected congress powers to pass laws, and powers of oversight (but not dismissal, except for wrongdoing) over  the president. A number of countries (including France and Italy) have constitutions that combine the parliamentary characteristics of the Westminster model with the presidential features of the United States model. Most countries (but not Britain) have written constitutions that can be amended by their electorates and are subject to interpretation by courts such as the Supreme Court of the United States. Such courts are usually appointed rather than elected, but are constitutionally independent of government control. The provision for the democratic participation of the electorate in decision-making is a prominent feature of the constitution of the Swiss cantons, but in  most democracies  it takes the form of referendums undertaken at the discretion of governments.

Domestic institutions
It has been established from American experience that policy outcomes are influenced by institutional arrangements such as electoral procedures and conditions of tenure, but the major policy impact has everywhere been achieved by  the multitude of organisations devoted to influencing government policy  by collective action. Groups of people who have beliefs, ideologies or financial interests in common have exerted influence that has often been out of proportion to their numerical strength. (In 1965 the economist Mancur Olson stimulated interest in such organisations by a book in which he stressed the limited incentive for a member to pull his weight in a large group, and concluded that small groups are easier to organise. The subject has since been extensively explored by sociologists and others.   ).  Pressure groups representing industrial interests can contribute to the effectiveness of government by supplying it with specialised knowledge, but their main purpose is what has been termed rent seeking, or seeking a sectional advantage at the expense of the rest of the community. The success in that respect of any particular pressure group has been shown to depend upon the activities of competing groups. Farming lobbies have been the most successful of the industrial pressure groups in most developed countries , and, probably next in importance have been the environmental pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth . The major political pressure groups have of course been the political parties and different party systems have emerged in different countries. Their basic characteristics were explored in the 1960s by the French political scientist Maurice Duverger whose major finding, known as Duverger’s Law, was that a first-past-the-post or "plurality electoral system" tends to favour two-party political systems, whereas proportional representation systems tend to favour multi-party politics. Differing forms of proportional representation have been adopted by the major European countries except France and Britain and has normally given rise to multi-party systems and coalition governments, whereas pluralist voting and two-party systems have been the general rule in the United States, Canada, Britain and Australia. There are single-party governments in China, Cuba and Syria and politics have from time to time been dominated by one of a number of parties in Mexico, Japan, Russia and India.

International Institutions
Changes to international relations during the twentieth century have embodied a recognition of growing interdependence. Clusters of local alliances have given way to the concept of extensive mutual defence, there has been a gradual erosion of the concept of the sovereignty of nation states, and there has been increased concern about humanitarian issues. Those trends were reflected in the 1945 charter of the United Nations which proposed world-wide mutual defence, an international court for settling disputes, the protection of refugees, and the prevention and punishment of genocide. Member states have not implemented the original intention to create a military back up for  those measures, except on a selective ad hoc basis, and in other respects, the intentions behind the charter have been only partially realised. The constitution of the International Court of Justice does not make it compulsory to accede to a request for   the submission of disputes, and the rulings of the court are not binding. The United Nations has had limited success in attempts to prevent any of the 17 subsequent genocides and it was not until 2002 that a court  was set up to enable those responsible to be prosecuted. The constitution of the United Nations initially prohibited all intervention in states' domestic affairs, but a commission set up by its Secretary General has since recommended that where a population is suffering serious harm, the principle of non-intervention should give way to "the responsibility to protect" The principle international economic institutions are The World Trade Organisation which develops and regulates agreements concerning trade barriers, the International Monetary Fund which is concerned to maintain exchange stability, and provides temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment, and the World Bank which provides financial and technical assistance to developing countries. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) is a mutual defence institution involving 26 countries in North America and Europe. There are also a number of regional institutions that promote various forms of cooperation, including the Free Trade Area of the Americas, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) , the Organisation of African Unity  , and the European Union , part of which is also a common currency area.

Political Conduct
There are important aspects of politics that are not determined by ideology or institutions. They include campaigning techniques and legislative conduct. The subject of political tactics was extensively examined by Jeremy Bentham in the nineteenth century and the subject was systematically developed by Anthony Downs in his 1957 book An Economic Theory of Democracy. . The best-known of his conclusions was his median voter theory which claimed that the winning party in a two-party election would be the party that positioned  itself the closer to the views of the median voter. The subject has since been widely explored, and the political analyst Jennifer Lees-Marchment has used marketing theory to identify  three campaigning strategies. The product-oriented strategy concentrates on devising effective policies, the sales-oriented strategy concentrates on publicising the merits of existing policies, and the market-oriented strategy seeks to find out what the public wants and to adjust policies accordingly The use of marketing professionals for political purposes, which is believed to have originated in the Kennedy-Nixon contests,  had spread to Britain and elsewhere by the 1970s. Much use was made of focus groups and citizens juries to assess popular reactions to policy proposals, but mainly among uncommitted groups  and in marginal constituencies. Considerable efforts were put into influencing public opinion by speeches, and television appearances and mainly by news management or "spin". News management techniques described by Professor Ivor Gabor include  rebuttal of opponents’ criticisms, building-up and undermining personalities, kite-flying to gauge public reactions to rumoured proposals, and the timing of announcements to divert attention from bad news. However, adverse public reactions to spin may have since placed some constraint upon the use of such techniques. Legislative conduct has been shown to be strongly influenced by institutional arrangements, and party unity is more important in parliamentary systems, which give parliaments the power to dismiss governments, than in presidential systems in which the president retains office for a fixed term. Where party unity is important, party members are often put under pressure by party whips to support declared policies, and party attitudes to new proposals are commonly settled behind closed doors in meetings of the party caucus. Where party unity is less strong, legislative debating is more open, but logrolling conspiracies to gain local advantages are more common.