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.

Fundamentals

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 analagous 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.

Ideologies

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.

Theories of government

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 United States Supreme Court . 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.