Contractarian ideology and the legitimacy of government

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Randall G. Holcombe
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
General Public ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cooperative Strategy ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Prisoners Dilemma ◽  
The Masses

Abstract Social contract theory depicts a constitutional contract as the result of a hypothetical agreement among society's members to escape a prisoners' dilemma situation. It depicts citizens as political equals agreeing to be forced into a cooperative strategy rather than a socially suboptimal strategy that gives them the highest personal payoff. Government is the organization that forces everyone to cooperate. However, citizens can never bargain as political equals. An elite few design the rules, and others are forced to comply with them. The contractarian ideology that depicts government as acting in the general public interest legitimizes the actions of government, giving those elite few who hold government power a greater ability to use it to further their own interests, often at the expense of the masses. Within the context of a prisoners' dilemma game, contractarian ideology leads to an outcome that is socially suboptimal, but beneficial for the political elite.

PaReSoGo: Dataset on party representation of social groups for 25 countries, 2002–2016

2021 ◽  
pp. 135406882110238
Author(s):  
Olga Zelinska ◽  
Joshua K Dubrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Groups ◽  
European Social Survey ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dissimilarity Index ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Social Survey ◽  
Measure Representation ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
The Masses

Whereas social scientists have devised various ways to measure representation gaps between the political elite and the masses across nations and time, few datasets can be used to measure this gap for particular social groups. Minding the gap between what parties social groups vote for and what parties actually attain seats in parliament can reveal the position of social groups in the political power structure. We help to fill this gap with a new publicly available dataset, Party Representation of Social Groups (PaReSoGo), consisting of 25 countries and 150 country-years, and a method for its construction. We used the European Social Survey 2002–2016 and ParlGov data for this time span to create a Dissimilarity Index. To demonstrate the utility and flexibility in the combination of cross-national surveys and administrative data, we chose social groups of gender, age, and education, as well as intersectional groups based on gender and age, and attitudinal groups. We conclude this research note with empirical illustrations of PaReSoGo’s use.

Electoral system as a motivation to reforming political system- The Iraqi model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shamall Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Political Reform ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Life ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Electoral Laws ◽  
The Masses

The flaws and major flaws in the political systems represent one of the main motives that push the political elite towards making fundamental reforms, especially if those reforms have become necessary matters so that: Postponing them or achieving them affects the survival of the system and the political entity. Thus, repair is an internal cumulative process. It is cumulative based on the accumulated experience of the historical experience of the same political elite that decided to carry out reforms, and it is also an internal process because the decision to reform comes from the political elite that run the political process. There is no doubt that one means of political reform is to push the masses towards participation in political life. Changing the electoral system, through electoral laws issued by the legislative establishment, may be the beginning of political reform (or vice versa), taking into account the uncertainty of the political process, especially in societies that suffer from the decline of democratic values, represented by the processes of election from one cycle to another. Based on the foregoing, this paper seeks to analyze the relationship between the Electoral and political system, in particular, tracking and studying the Iraqi experience from the first parliamentary session until the issuance of the Election Law No. (9) for the year (2020).

History of the Word "Democracy" in Canada and Québec: A Political Analysis of Rhetorical Strategies

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Dupuis-Déri
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
The Political ◽  
Rhetorical Strategies ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
Discursive Strategies ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Masses

An examination of the speeches of modern Canada’s “founding fathers” reveals that they were openly antidemocratic. How did a regime founded on anti-democratic ideas come to be positively identified with democracy? Drawing on similar studies of the United States and France, this analysis of the history of the term democracy in Canada shows that the country’s association with democracy was not due to constitutional or institutional changes that might have justified re-labelling the country’s political regime. Rather, it was the result of discursive strategies employed by the political elite to strengthen its ability to mobilize the masses during the World Wars.

scholarly journals The Choice of Constitutional Amendments in a Young Democracy – from Indirect to Direct Election of the President in Taiwan

2010 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-131
Author(s):  
Da-chi Liao ◽  
Hui-chih Chang
Keyword(s):  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Loss Minimization ◽  
Constitutional Amendments ◽  
Direct Form ◽  
Power Maximization ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
The Masses

This paper attempts to determine the kind of constitutional rule preferred in a young democracy when an institutional opportunity for constitutional change occurs. It adopts the standpoint of collective decision-making. This approach involves two crucial theoretical elements: the calculation of the interests of the political elite and the masses' comprehension of what democracy is. The case studied here is Taiwan's constitutional choice between the direct and indirect election of the president during the period from 1990 to 1994. The paper first examines how the political leaders might have used both the logic of power maximization and of power-loss minimization to choose their position on the issue. It then demonstrates that survey results indeed showed that respondents better understood the direct form of electing the president and therefore supported it over the indirect one. This support helped the direct form to eventually win out.

scholarly journals Realism and reflexivity: Morgenthau, academic freedom and dissent

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 321-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seán Molloy
Keyword(s):  
Academic Freedom ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Government Power ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Hans Morgenthau

Primarily known as a pioneer of International Relations (IR) theory, Hans Morgenthau also wrote on a series of other political themes. Especially prominent in his later career is a concern with the right and duty of a theorist to exercise academic freedom as a critic of government power and, especially in this particular case, of US foreign policy. For Morgenthau the responsibility to hold governments to account by reference to the ‘higher laws’ that underpin and legitimize democracy in its truest form was a key function of the theorist in society. Dissensus and healthy debate characterize genuine democracy for Morgenthau who was perturbed by what he perceived to be a worrying concern with conformity and consensus among the political and academic elites of Vietnam War era America. This article investigates the theoretical and philosophical commitments that explain why Morgenthau felt compelled to oppose the government of his adopted state and the consequences of his having done so. For all the vicissitudes he endured, Morgenthau ultimately emerged vindicated from his clash with the political elite and his experience serves as an exemplary case of the effective use of academic freedom to oppose government policy by means of balanced, judicious critique. In the final section I argue that Morgenthau’s approach to theory, theorization and the role of the intellectual in society provides valuable insights into the nature of reflexivity in IR that are of relevance to contemporary debates in the discipline.

Reconsidering social movements in Turkey: The case of the 1968-71 protest cycle

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 63-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emin Alper
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Process Model ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Balance ◽  
Social Protests ◽  
White Collar Workers ◽  
The Masses

AbstractThe years between 1968 and 1971 in Turkey were unprecedented in terms of rising social protests instigated by students, workers, peasants, teachers and white-collar workers. However, these social movements have received very limited scholarly attention, and the existing literature is marred by many flaws. The scarce literature has mainly provided an economic determinist framework for understanding the massive mobilizations of the period, by stressing the worsening economic conditions of the masses. However, these explanations cannot be verified by data. This article tries to provide an alternative, mainly political explanation for the protest cycle of 1968-71, relying on the “political process” model of social movement studies. It suggests that the change in the power balance of organized groups in politics, which was spearheaded by a prolonged elite conflict between the Kemalist bureaucracy and the political elite of the center-right, provided significant opportunities to under-represented groups to organize and raise their voices.

scholarly journals resume hukum tatanegara

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
riska aprilia
Keyword(s):  
Social Contract ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
General Election ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Relationship ◽  
Political Candidate

Social contract is a conception about new power relationship between elite and people which is formulated in order tofulfill a demandforpolitical renewal which is need a continuity, not stagnation nor deterioration. We need to reconstruct any aspect o f social contract theory in order to understandabout social contract relevance with general election. The general election as a contract social guaranteed rights and obligation ofthe voters and the leaders. The contract mechanism between voters and political candidate is related by trust. The object of trust itself in general election is morality. The political contract consistency based on trust is afoundation for building a State as a moral entity, which is made by morally human being.Kinerja penguasa sistem dan pemerintahan negara Indonesia dalam lima tahun terakhir yang jauh dari harapan rakyat dan pemilih dalam pemilu pertama di era reformasi pada 1999, tampaknya melatari wacana politik tentang kontrak sosial menjelang Pemilu 2004. Diperbincangkan argumen penggunaannya untuk memperbaiki proses Pemilu dan terutama kinerja pemimpin yang terpilih dan berkuasa atas negara. Diperdebatkan kemungkinan formatnya yang sesuai dengan kebutuhan Indonesia dewasa ini. Dibahas pula strategi untuk menerapkannya dalam rangka pemilu.Sejauh ini berbagai gagasan sudah dikemukakan. Akan tetapi belum diperoleh kemajuan yang berarti, baik secara konsepsional maupun aplikatif. Karena itu, ada baiknya ditelusuri konsepsi tentang aspek-aspeknya sejauh berkaitan dengan Pemilu, dengan harapan berguna sebagai pemancing inspirasi.Kontrak sosial sebagai perjanjian di antara masyarakat dengan kaum elite yang diwakili oleh penguasa, berakar kepada pemikiran politik dari abad ke-16 sampai k e - 18 di Eropa Barat, terutama karya Thomas Hobbes, Jhon Locke, dan Jean Jacques Rousseau. M ereka adalah bagian dari golongan pem ikir besar Eropa yang merespons peralihan era revolusi pertanian pertama di pertengahan abad ke-16 menujurevolusi keagungan dan revolusi ilmu pengetahuan di akhir abad ke-18. Pemikiran mereka menapaki perjalanan panjang pergeseran kekuasaan dari raja dan kaum bangsawan kepada kaum feodal yang semakin mendominasi parlemen, sebagai imbalan bagi kontribusi pajak mereka yang semakin menentukan sumber keuangan kerajaan.Kontrak sosial merupakan konsepsi tentang hubungan kekuasaan baru di antara penguasa dengan rakyat, yang dirumuskan untuk menjawab tuntutan pembaharuan politik yangmemerlukan keberlanjutan, bukan kemandekan apalagi kemunduran. Itulah sebabnya maka para pemikir tersebut, mengetengahkan kontrak sosial guna menegaskan bahwa bukan raja, akan tetapi rakyat yang merupakan pemilik kedaulatan. Bahwa penguasa harus memperoleh kepercayaan rakyat supaya bisa memerintah secara sah. Bahwa untuk itu, baik penguasa maupun rakyat harus mempunyai tanggung

Komunikator Politik Berdasarkan Teori Generasi

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirza Shahreza
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Generation X ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Political Elite ◽  
The Political ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Media Technology ◽  
The Public ◽  
Generation Theory

At a time when the public interest is disrupted by a policy or regulation made by a power. Then, there will be a reaction from the political elite, educated, and ordinary people. Apparently, we can all play a role as a political communicator when reacting to news about politics that appear in various mass media. This paper will look at the mapping of political communicators based on generation theory. In an era, there will certainly be several layers of society that are distinguished by the age or the age at which they were born. The ever-changing media and technological trends greatly affect each generation in building their mindset and political behavior. Similarly, leadership styles and rulers’ perspective also color every generation. Based on Generation theory, there is the term traditionalist, baby boomers, generation X, Y, Z, and alpha. Everything is primarily related to the behavior, lifestyle, profession, culture that is often associated with the characteristics of those generations. The theory put forward by Strauss and Howe is a very subjective assumption. Based on the theory, the writer will adapt Generasi theory in understanding the political communicator in Indonesia. This paper is a study of literature derived from various scientific readings processed and composed by the author. Understanding the theory of generations can help to identify the characteristics and ways communicators communicate, constructing messages across generations that will generally split the senior (youth) and junior (youth) generation.Keywords: communicator, politics, generation theory, media, technology.

The democratic boundary problem and social contract theory

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Verschoor
Keyword(s):  
Boundary Problem ◽  
Social Contract ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
Contract Theory ◽  
Social Contract Theory ◽  
Political Order ◽  
The Political ◽  
Academic Interest ◽  
Political Units

How to demarcate the political units within which democracy will be practiced? Although recent years have witnessed a steadily increasing academic interest in this question concerning the boundary problem in democratic theory, social contract theory’s potential for solving it has largely been ignored. In fact, contract views are premised on the assumption of a given people and so presuppose what requires legitimization: the existence of a demarcated group of individuals materializing, as it were, from nowhere and whose members agree among themselves to establish a political order. In order to fill this gap in social contract theory, a distinction is made between three kinds of contract views: Lockean political voluntarism, contractarianism, and contractualism. Each of these views can be (re)interpreted in such a way that it offers a democratic solution to the boundary problem. Ultimately, however, a Rawlsian interpretation of the contractualist solution is defended.

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