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In political science, a political system means the type of political organization that can be recognized, observed or otherwise declared by a state.[1]

It defines the process for making official government decisions. It usually comprizes the governmental legal and economic system, social and cultural system, and other state and government specific systems. However, this is a very simplified view of a much more complex system of categories involving the questions of who should have authority and what the government influence on its people and economy should be.

The major types of political systems are democracies, monarchies, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes with varying hybrid systems.[2]

Definition

According to David Easton, "A political system can be designated as the interactions through which values are authoritatively allocated for a society".[3]

Social political science

Further information: List of forms of government
World's states coloured by systems of government:
Parliamentary systems: Head of government is elected or nominated by and accountable to the legislature
  Constitutional monarchy with a ceremonial monarch
  Parliamentary republic with a ceremonial president
  Parliamentary republic with an executive president
Presidential system: Head of government (president) is popularly elected and independent of the legislature
  Presidential republic
Hybrid systems:
  Semi-presidential republic: Executive president is independent of the legislature; head of government is appointed by the president and is accountable to the legislature
  Assembly-independent republic: Head of government (president or directory) is elected by the legislature, but is not accountable to it
Other systems:
  Theocratic republic: Supreme Leader holds significant executive and legislative power
  Semi-constitutional monarchy: Monarch holds significant executive or legislative power
  Absolute monarchy: Monarch has unlimited power
  One-party state: Power is constitutionally linked to a single political party
  Military junta: Committee of military leaders controls the government; constitutional provisions are suspended
  Provisional government: No constitutionally defined basis to current regime
  Dependent territories or places without governments
Note: this chart represents the de jure systems of government, not the de facto degree of democracy.

The sociological interest in political systems is figuring out who holds power within the relationship between the government and its people and how the government’s power is used. According to Yale professor Juan José Linz there a three main types of political systems today: democracies, totalitarian regimes and, sitting between these two, authoritarian regimes (with hybrid regimes).[4][5] Another modern classification system includes monarchies as a standalone entity or as a hybrid system of the main three.[6] Scholars generally refer to a dictatorship as either a form of authoritarianism or totalitarianism.[7][8][4][9]

Democracy

Further information: Types of democracy
Democracy (from Ancient Greek: δημοκρατία, romanized: dēmokratía, dēmos 'people' and kratos 'rule')[10] is a system of government in which state power is vested in the people or the general population of a state.[11][12][13] Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitive elections while more expansive definitions link democracy to guarantees of civil liberties and human rights in addition to competitive elections.[14][15][13]

Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism is a political system characterized by the rejection of political plurality, the use of strong central power to preserve the political status quo, and reductions in democracy, separation of powers, civil liberties, and the rule of law.[16][17] Political scientists have created many typologies describing variations of authoritarian forms of government.[17] Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.[18][19] States that have a blurred boundary between democracy and authoritarianism have some times been characterized as "hybrid democracies", "hybrid regimes" or "competitive authoritarian" states.[20][21][22]

Totalitarian

Totalitarianism is a political system and a form of government that prohibits opposition political parties, disregards and outlaws the political claims of individual and group opposition to the state, and controls the public sphere and the private sphere of society. In the field of political science, totalitarianism is the extreme form of authoritarianism, wherein all socio-political power is held by a dictator, who also controls the national politics and the peoples of the nation with continual propaganda campaigns that are broadcast by state-controlled and by friendly private mass communications media.[23]

Monarchy

A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, reigns as head of state for life or until abdication. The extent of the authority of the monarch may vary from restricted and largely symbolic (constitutional monarchy), to fully autocratic (absolute monarchy), and may have representational, executive, legislative, and judicial functions.[24]

The succession of monarchs has mostly been hereditary, often building dynasties. However, monarchies can also be elective and self-proclaimed.[25] Aristocrats, though not inherent to monarchies, often function as the pool of persons from which the monarch is chosen, and to fill the constituting institutions (e.g. diet and court), giving many monarchies oligarchic elements.

The political legitimacy of the inherited, elected or proclaimed monarchy has most often been based on claims of representation of people and land through some form of relation (e.g. kinship) and divine right or other achieved status.

Hybrid

Further information: Democratization and Democratic backsliding

A hybrid regime[a] is a type of political system often created as a result of an incomplete democratic transition from an authoritarian regime to a democratic one (or vice versa).[b] Hybrid regimes are categorized as having a combination of autocratic features with democratic ones and can simultaneously hold political repressions and regular elections.[b] Hybrid regimes are commonly found in developing countries with abundant natural resources such as petro-states.[43][33][44] Although these regimes experience civil unrest, they may be relatively stable and tenacious for decades at a time.[b] There has been a rise in hybrid regimes since the end of the Cold War.[45][46]

The term hybrid regime arises from a polymorphic view of political regimes that opposes the dichotomy of autocracy or democracy.[47] Modern scholarly analysis of hybrid regimes focuses attention on the decorative nature of democratic institutions (elections do not lead to a change of power, different media broadcast the government point of view and the opposition in parliament votes the same way as the ruling party, among others),[48] from which it is concluded that democratic backsliding, a transition to authoritarianism is the most prevalent basis of hybrid regimes.[b][49] Some scholars also contend that hybrid regimes may imitate a full dictatorship.[50][51]

Sociological and socioanthropological classification

Social anthropologists generally recognize four kinds of political systems, two of which are uncentralized and two of which are centralized.[52]

  • Uncentralized systems
    • Band society
      • Small family group, no larger than an extended family or clan; it has been defined as consisting of no more than 30 to 50 individuals.
      • A band can cease to exist if only a small group walks out.
    • Tribe
      • Generally larger, consisting of many families. Tribes have more social institutions, such as a chief or elders.
      • More permanent than bands. Many tribes are sub-divided into bands.
  • Centralized governments
    • Chiefdom
      • More complex than a tribe or a band society, and less complex than a state or a civilization
      • Characterized by pervasive inequality and centralization of authority.
      • A single lineage/family of the elite class becomes the ruling elite of the chiefdom
      • Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy.
      • "An autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief"[53]
    • Sovereign state
      • A sovereign state is a state with a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.
  • Supranational political systems
    • Supranational political systems are created by independent nations to reach a common goal or gain strength from forming an alliance.
  • Empires
    • Empires are widespread states or communities under a single rule. They are characterized by the ruler's desire for unanimous religious affiliation or posing as a threat to other empires in times of war. Empires - such as the Romans, or British - often made considerable progress in ways of democratic structures, creating and building city infrastructures, and maintaining civility within the diverse communities. Because of the intricate organization of the empires, they were often able to hold a large majority of power on a universal level.
  • Leagues
    • Leagues are international organizations composed of states coming together for a single common purpose. In this way, leagues are different from empires, as they only seek to fulfill a single goal. Often leagues are formed on the brink of a military or economic downfall. Meetings and hearings are conducted in a neutral location with representatives of all involved nations present.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Scholars use a variety of terms to encompass the "grey zones" between full autocracies and full democracies.[26] Such terms include: competitive authoritarianism, semi-authoritarianism, hybrid authoritarianism, electoral authoritarianism, liberal autocracy, delegative democracy, illiberal democracy, guided democracy, semi-democracy, deficient democracy, defective democracy, and hybrid democracy.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34]
  2. ^ a b c d "Some scholars argue that deficient democracies and deficient autocracies can be seen as examples of hybrid regimes, whereas others argue that hybrid regimes combine characteristics of both democratic and autocratic regimes."[28] Scholars also debate if these regimes are in transition or are inherently a stable political system.[35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]

References

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  2. ^ "14.2 Types of Political Systems". 8 April 2016.
  3. ^ Easton, David. (1971). The political system : an inquiry into the state of political science. Knopf. OCLC 470276419.
  4. ^ a b Juan José Linz (2000). Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Lynne Rienner Publisher. p. 143. ISBN 978-1-55587-890-0. OCLC 1172052725.
  5. ^ Jonathan Michie, ed. (3 February 2014). Reader's Guide to the Social Sciences. Routledge. p. 95. ISBN 978-1-135-93226-8.
  6. ^ Ginny Garcia-Alexander; Hyeyoung Woo; Matthew J. Carlson (3 November 2017). Social Foundations of Behavior for the Health Sciences. Springer. pp. 137–. ISBN 978-3-319-64950-4. OCLC 1013825392.
  7. ^ Allan Todd; Sally Waller (10 September 2015). Allan Todd; Sally Waller (eds.). History for the IB Diploma Paper 2 Authoritarian States (20th Century). Cambridge University Press. pp. 10–. ISBN 978-1-107-55889-2.
  8. ^ Ezrow & Frantz 2011, pp. 14–17.
  9. ^ Sondrol, P. C. (2009). "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Dictators: A Comparison of Fidel Castro and Alfredo Stroessner". Journal of Latin American Studies. 23 (3): 599–620. doi:10.1017/S0022216X00015868. JSTOR 157386. S2CID 144333167.
  10. ^ "Democracy". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 24 February 2021.
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  33. ^ a b Zinecker, Heidrun (2009). "Regime-Hybridity in Developing Countries: Achievements and Limitations of New Research on Transitions". International Studies Review. 11 (2). [Oxford University Press, Wiley, The International Studies Association]: 302–331. doi:10.1111/j.1468-2486.2009.00850.x. ISSN 1521-9488. JSTOR 40389063. Archived from the original on 2022-11-16. Retrieved 2022-11-18.
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  35. ^ Ekman, Joakim (2009). "Political Participation and Regime Stability: A Framework for Analyzing Hybrid Regimes". International Political Science Review. 30 (1): 7–31. doi:10.1177/0192512108097054. ISSN 0192-5121. S2CID 145077481.
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Further reading

  • Douglas V. Verney (15 April 2013). The Analysis of Political Systems. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-135-03477-1.
  • Almond, Gabriel A., et al. Comparative Politics Today: A World View (Seventh Edition). 2000. ISBN 0-316-03497-5.
  • Ferris, Kerry, and Jill Stein. The Real World An Introduction to Sociology. 3rd ed. New York City: W W Norton & Co, 2012. Print.
  • "political system". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 02 Dec. 2012.
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