POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS
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Soveignty, Authority, and Power
An important part of studying comparative government and politics is developing an understanding of political institutions, structures of a political system that carry out the work of governing. Some governments have much more elaborate structures than others, but they often have similarities across cultures. However, just because you see the same type of institution in two different countries, don't assume that they serve the same functions for the political system. For example, a legislature in one country may have a great deal more power than a comparable structure in another country. Only by studying the way that the structures operate and the functions they fill will you be able to compare them accurately. Common structures that exist in most countries are legislatures, executives, judicial systems, bureaucracies, and armies.
LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT
Every state has multiple levels of authority, though the geographic distribution of power varies widely. A unitary system is one that concentrates all policymaking powers in one central geographic place; a confederal system spreads the power among many sub-units (such as states), and has a weak central government. A federal system divides the power between the central government and the sub-units. All political systems fall on a continuum from the most concentrated amount of power to the least. Unitary governments may be placed on the left side, according to the degree of concentration; confederal governments are placed to the right; and federal governments fall in between. Most countries have unitary systems, including all six of the core countries, although Britain is moving toward more federalism and the Nigerian state is generally too weak to effectively concentrate its power in one place.
SUPRANATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
All political systems exist within an environment that is affected by other governments, but more and more they are affected by supranational organizations that go beyond national boundaries. Some have more international and/or regional contacts than others, but most countries in the world today must cope with influences from the outside and interactions with others. In the 20th century, many national governments established relationships with regional organizations &endash; such as NATO, the European Union, NAFTA, and OPEC &endash; and with international organizations, such as the United Nations. These supranational organizations reflect a strong tendency toward globalization - an integration of social, environmental, economic, and cultural activities of nations that has resulted from increasing international contacts. On the other hand, many political scientists point out a counter trend &endash; fragmentation &endash; a tendency for people to base their loyalty on ethnicity, language, religion, or cultural identity. Although globalization and fragmentation appear to be opposite concepts, they both transcend political boundaries between individual countries.
EXECUTIVES
The executive office carries out the laws and policies of a state. In many countries the executive is split into two distinct roles: the head of state and the head of government. The head of state is a role that symbolizes and represents the people, both nationally and internationally, and may or may not have any real policymaking power. The head of government deals with the everyday tasks of running the state, and usually directs the activities of other members of the executive branch. The distinction is clearly seen in a country such as Britain, where formerly powerful monarchs reigned over their subjects, but left others (such as prime ministers) in charge of actually running the country. Today Britain still has a monarch that is head of state, but the real power rests with the prime minister, who is head of government. Likewise, the Japanese emperor still symbolically represents the nation, but the prime minister runs the government. In the United States, both roles are combined into one position &endash; the president. However, in other countries, such as Italy and Germany, the president is the head of state with weak powers, and the prime minister is the head of government. In still others, such as Russia and France, the president is head of state with strong powers, and the prime minister is the head of government with subordinate powers.
BUREAUCRACIES
Bureaucracies consist of agencies that generally implement government policy. They usually are a part of the executive branch of government, and their size has generally increased over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries. This is partly due to government efforts to improve the health, security, and welfare of their populations.
German political philosopher Max Weber created the classic conception of bureaucracy as a well-organized, complex machine that is a "rational" way for a modern society to organize its business. He did not see them as necessary evils, but as the best organizational response to a changing society.
According to Weber, a bureaucracy has several basic characteristics:
- Hierarchical authority structure - A chain of command that is hierarchical; the top bureaucrat has ultimate control, and authority flows from the top down.
- Task specialization - A clear division of labor in which every individual has a specialized job
- Extensive rules - Clearly written, well-established formal rules that all people in the organization follow
- Clear goals - A clearly defined set of goals that all people in the organization strive toward
- The merit principle - Merit-based hiring and promotion; no granting of jobs to friends or family unless they are the best qualified
- Impersonality - Job performance that is judged by productivity, or how much work the individual gets done
Bureaucracies have acquired great significance in most contemporary societies and often represent an important source of stability for states.
LEGISLATURES
The legislature is the branch of government charged with making laws. Legislatures may be bicameral, with two houses, or unicameral, or only one. The most usual form is bicameral, and may be traced back to Britain's House of Lords and House of Commons. Despite the fact that one house is referred to as "upper" and the other as "lower," the upper house does not necessarily have more power than the lower house. In the United States, it is debatable which house is more powerful than the other, and in Britain, Russia, and France, the upper house has very little power.
Memberships in the legislature may be determined in different ways, with many houses being elected directly by voters. However, others are selected by government officials, or their membership may be determined by political parties. The six core countries offer a variety of contrasting methods for determining legislative memberships.
JUDICIARIES
Court systems that decide the guilt or innocence of lawbreakers go back to the days of medieval England, but constitutional courts that serve to defend democratic principles of a country against infringement by both private citizens and the government are a much more recent phenomenon. Judicial review, the mechanism that allows courts to review laws and executive actions for their constitutionality, was well established in the United States during the 19th century, but it has developed over the past decades in other democracies. The growth of judicial power over the past century has been spurred in part by the desire to protect human rights. The judiciary is still a relatively weak branch in most of the six core countries of the comparative government and politics course, but it takes a variety of forms in each of them.
LINKAGE INSTITUTIONS
In many countries we may identify groups that connect the government to its citizens, such as political parties, interest groups, and print and electronic media. Appropriately, these groups are called linkage institutions. Their size and development depends partly on the size of the population, and partly on the scope of government activity. The larger the population, and the more complex the government's policy-making activities, the more likely the country is to have well developed linkage institutions.
Political Parties
Political parties perform many functions in democracies. First, they help bring different people and ideas together to establish the means by which the majority can rule. Second, they hold politicians accountable to the electorate and other political elites. Most democracies have multi-party systems, with the two-party system in the United States being a more unusual arrangement. Communist states have one-party systems that dominate the governments, but non-communist countries have also had one-party systems. An example is Mexico during most of the 20th century as it was dominated by PRI.
Electoral Systems
Electoral systems are the rules that decide how votes are cast, counted, and translated into seats in a legislature. All democracies divide their populations by electoral boundaries, but they use many different arrangements. The United States, India, and the Great Britain use a system called first-past-the-post, in which they divide their constituencies into single-member districts in which candidates compete for a single representative's seat. It is also called the plurality system, or the winner-take-all system, because the winner does not need a majority to win, but simply needs to get more votes than anyone else. In contrast, many countries use proportional representation that creates multi-member districts in which more than one legislative seat is contested in each district. Under proportional representation, voters cast their ballots for a party rather than for a candidate, and the percentage of votes a party receives determines how many seats the party will gain in the legislature. South Africa and Italy use a system based solely on proportional representation, and many countries, including Germany, Mexico, and Russia, used a mixed system that combines first-past-the-post and proportional representation.
POLITICAL ELITES AND RECRUITMENT
All countries have political elites, or leaders that have a disproportionate share of policy-making power. In democracies, these people are selected by competitive elections, but they still may be readily identified as political elites. Every country must establish a method of elite recruitment, or ways to identify and select people for future leadership positions. Also, countries must be concerned about leadership succession, or the process that determines the procedure for replacing leaders when they resign, die, or are no longer effective.
Do you want to see the real thing? Read Karl Marx's Communism Manifesto on line!
Visit Europa for information from the European Union.
For a review of a book that argues the point that globalization does not necessarily destroy particular cultures, see "Brave New McWorld," http://www.calendarlive.com/books/bookreview/cl-bk-barber2feb02,0,7127434.story?coll=
Read a provocative article about "illiberal democracy."
