Many people ponder the nature of politics. Politics is an art, a way of thinking, and a public, idealistic profession, though it is sometimes succumbs to corruption and a lack of ideals, that often changes the course of world events. Mortals of reason and influence express their ideas in order to form or reform a group’s policy. In democratic society, the populous is able express and apply their inherent views into an arena that beholds a battle for the consensus. However, the premise of the people engaging in free reason and the appointment of representatives of that reason has not always been the case in the historical spectrum. Throughout the course of history, politics has changed from being a totalitarian regime to permitting the people to determine some of their collective destiny. To understand the politics of the past, one must begin to explore and comprehend the epochs of ancient totalitarianism, the medieval feudal System, the limited Monarchy, and the modern day systems of democracies and communist governments. History has witnessed a transformation of the world thought on politics. Ancient Monarchies: For thousands of years across the globe, governments have been ruled at the hand of monarchies. These monarchies ranged from a single king to a council of absolute rulers. The history of the monarchy is perhaps the longest form of ruling in world history. Its known history is marked by a time period by over 3,000 years. From the city-states of Sumeria in 2600 B.C. to the fall of Ottoman Empire in 1923, history has been dominated by kings and queens who have held or attempted to have held absolute rule. One may ask, “What drove these monarchies, and what caused their collapse?” The first question is simple, power. Terr... ... middle of paper ... ...ing that they were restoring the people from oppression. Regime come in many forms: Facism in the 1920s-40s, Comunism, and Islamic Theocracy. However, they all brought oppression, and as a result, hundreds of millions of human beings perished. The modern age has brought about a number of periods, ranging from limited monarchy, to democracy, to totalitarianism. The history of politics is one of many millennia of change over time. From monarchies, to democracies, to dictatoriships, the nature of political freedom and political thought has changed greatly. However, dictaroships have always existed in some form. Due to human nature, dicatoriships will always exist in some form. Likewise, free thought has emerged and allowed a new sense of freedom and progress in society. History should remember the change of the political system for the benefit of all people.
There are thousands of years of history that have taken place. History is not like art(less subjective), but there is still plenty of room for speculation, criticism, and debate among historians, professors, as well as average citizens. However, not all these moments are documented, or done successfully specifically. Some of these moments end up becoming movies, books, or even historical fiction novels, but what about those fundamental moments that aren’t readily documented? In the book The Birth of Modern Politics Lynn Hudson Parsons claims that the 1828 election was momentous in the history of both political history, as well as our nation. Parsons not only discusses the behind the scenes of the first public election of 1828, but the pivotal events in Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams’ lives leading up to the election as well. Parsons succeeds in proving her thesis that the 1828 election was crucial to American politics as we know it today, as well as provoking evidence from various sources with her own logic and opinions as well.
Throughout history there have been significant debates, theories and agendas set forward as to what the best form of government is. Many of those individuals and groups who have written on the topic have their critics because they offer points that are highly controversial in theory and problematic when put into practice. John Locke and Publius, which is the collective name for Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, both published essays with regards to the nature of government and largely championed the notion of democracy. With Locke writing on constitutional government in England and Publius writing on and essentially establishing governmental mechanisms in the United States, both parties inspired the rise of liberalism and democratic government in the modern world (Tinder, 67). However, there are questions to be asked of them and indeed comparisons to be made. This essay will examine the arguments set forth by Publius and Locke with a view to proving that they do indeed champion strong government and arguably exclude arbitrary governmental traits that may constrain attempts to do what is best for the individual rather than the people as a whole. In effect, the constraints they put in place in their texts established a balance of power that had its limits and weaknesses but ultimately appeared to be fair.
The ancient kings had absolute authority and sovereignty. In those times The king was the head of the state, chief priest, general and judge. The obvious qualifications for this post were birth, wealth and. military power. The king may have been considered semi-divine due to.
In history, governments have endeavored to rule their subjects. Major forms of authority consist primarily of monarchy, absolute monarchy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny, theocracy, and republic. By examining the main faults of each government, the republic is clearly the superior form.
In contrary to its contemporary antagonist philosophical schools, who advocate the practices of humanness and the rightness and set ideal of the past, the Legalists, in their complete rejection of the traditional ethics, embraces the efficacy of political power and uphold a society of laws and punishments. As the old feudal states decayed and the smoke of endemic warfare suffused, the need for a more rational government that can afford greater centralized power so as to strengthen a state against its rival increased substantially among the Warring States. Such a rising urge necessitated the emergence of the Legalists and further predetermined the Legalists’ inherent nature – realistic, totalitarian and problem-solving – which, with the realization of its significance and duty in the stream of history, finds its hegemonic character as well.
Is the purpose of government today, similar to that of philosophers of the past, or has there been a shift in political thought? This essay will argue that according to Machiavelli’s The Prince, the purpose of government is to ensure the stability of the state as well as the preservation of the established ruler’s control, and that the best form of government should take the form of an oligarchy. In contrast, in his book, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argues that the purpose of government should be to preserve the peace and security of men and, that the best form of government would be an absolute monarchy which would sanction such conditions. This essay will utilize themes of glory, material advantage, peace and stability to illustrate
Throughout this paper I plan to compare and contrast the ideas and philosophies of two of the greatest political thinkers of all time. Thucydides and Aristotle have separate opinions of the idea of democracy, originally created by Plato. However, these two have a positive assessment of this idea of majority rule of the people. My paper will provide each of their points of view. At the end I will determine, in my opinion, which of these two philosophers give a better case in favor of a democratic form of government, and give the reasons as to how I came to that conclusion.
20). An us-versus-them relationship in which the opposing factions consider each other as enemies is antagonistic. Democratic institutions need to alter this relationship in an agonistic one, which means that the factions that are in conflict, while they admit that it is not possible to find a rational solution for their disagreement, nonetheless consider the other as a legitimate party. Democratic institutions, for example those in a parliamentary system, ensure that potentially antagonistic conflicts are transformed in conflicts in which the different parties recognize each other as adversaries (Mouffe, 2005). There is an agreement on what Mouffe (2005, p.31) calls the ‘ethico-political values’ of liberty and equality, but a continuous conflict about how we should interpret an realize them exists. This agonistic conflict ‘is not one that could be resolved through deliberation and rational discussion’ (Mouffe, 1999, p. 755). There is ‘a struggle between opposing hegemonic conflicts which can never be reconciled rationally. It is the very configuration of power relations around which a given society is structured’ (Mouffe, 2005, p.21). Thus, Mouffe argues that power struggles and conflict are inherent of our coexistence and that the deliberative democratic model aimed at reaching rational consensus, does not recognize the antagonistic nature of our society and fails to understand politics as a continuous power struggle. The main problem with the idea of deliberative democracy is that it does not understand the nature of the conflict that is inherent of society (Mouffe, 1999). The conditions of ideal deliberation cannot be met, because there is an ontological gap between ideal and real deliberation, due to the ever conflictual nature of the political. Instead of deliberative democracy we should have the
In 508 B.C, a civil war in Athens ceased; giving rise to a new democratic constitution under the leadership of Cleisthenes. The changes made under his leadership and other subsequent reforms resulted in a relatively radical form of government for the time known as democracy (Hyland Lecture, 26/09/2013). Democracy is a system of collective decision-making in which the participants have equality at least at one essential point of the decision making process (Christiano, “Democracy”). Furthermore, the term ‘democracy’, which comes from the Greeks, literally means rule by the people. The system of government, created by the Greeks, known as Democracy possessed many unique characteristics such as judicial review that have come to influence modern governments. The principle of equality allowed all Athenian citizens to participate in government on an equal level, a practice that as Plato pointed out is no longer feasible. Ancient Athenian democracy also utilized direct representation and did not distinguish political rights from individual rights. In this way, while Athenian democracy has influenced modern democracies through ideas such as equality and checks and balances, it cannot be said to be democratic in the modern sense of the term due to its utilization of institutions and promotion of values that no longer are applicable or desired in the modern realm of politics. Since the time of Athenian democracy, the world has experienced many intellectual movements including the enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, and the industrial revolution to name a few that have forced governments to change in response to new popular opinion and technology.
Human civilization exists in categories: old and new, rigid or revolutionary, progressive or conservative, advanced or primitive. People create categories to better understand the world, and to interact with it more easily than if they regarded life in its true, spectrum-like nature. Often, social categories result in exclusion, a path that trends towards increasing harms for any people being excluded. This paper applies exclusion to the nation-state: that modern invention of a new category, one that describes broad, influential political institutions that are justified not by their political past but by the social, economic, and cultural past that their people supposedly share. This paper discusses how exclusion has manifested itself in two
“Politics as a Vocation” is a lecture written by Max Weber, a German political economist whose beliefs and ideas on politics influenced many. The universe of his writing is focused around the nature of politics, and the way people were involved and influenced by politics, which was eventually molded into the modern politics, as we know it today. Weber explains that the focus of his lecture is surrounded between two beliefs of politics, that being leadership and relation of a state. Weber mentions that “every state is founded on force” (25) and how that force coexists with the idea of violence, and if without it that there wouldn’t be a state. “Today, however, we have to say that a state is a human community (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” (32-4). Weber also mentions that territory is another description of a state, being described in a physical force, as the one and only right of the use violence. “Hence, ‘politics’ for us means striving to share power or striving to influence the distribution of power, either among states or among groups within a state” (37-9). This quote explains politics as either in a leadership form in self-seeking power for there own prestige, or for the sake of others.
The American Political System The American political system is a federal system, which consists of
Some authors and theorists have strived to explain the democratic peace by drawing attention to the role of public opinion. They witness that democratic leaders are beholden to voters, and claim that voters reject war because of its human and financial costs. This altercation, which dates to Immanuel Kant, predicts that democracies will react peacefully in general—avoiding war not only against democracies, but also against autocracies. Hist...
What Is Politics On hearing the word politics, what usually springs to mind are images of government, politicians and their policies or more negatively the idea of corruption and dirty tricks. The actual definition seems to have been obscured and almost lost by such representations and clichés that tend not to pinpoint the true essence, which defines this thing, called politics. In order to make an attempt at a definition of politics a systematic approach is required. To begin with, a brief historical overview will be considered, to understand the origins of politics. Following this, different core concepts, which are imperative to a definition of politics, will be discussed, in the hope to discover a true and fair interpretation of the word politics.
It is well known that the British political system is one of the oldest political systems in the world. Obviously, it was formed within the time. The United Kingdom of the Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the constitutional monarchy, providing stability, continuity and national focus. The monarch is the head of state, but only Parliament has the right to create and undertake the legislation. The basis of the United Kingdom’s political system is a parliamentary democracy. Therefore, people think the role of the Queen as worthless and mainly unnecessarily demanding for funding, but is it like that?