Monday, September 20, 2010
Political Attitude and Political Ideology
My political attitude is moderately conservative which makes my political ideology liberalism.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
2.1, 2.4, 2.5
In all three of the articles combined, each individual author(s) had their own take on what a state is.
In the first article, written by Marx, he states that a state is a somewhere that claims control over a certain society within a territory. Being the good government students that we are, we already knew that. Marx decides to take an extra step and branch out and say that citizenship is the key institutional mechanism for establishing boundaries and conclusions. Now that he has established what a state is and what its people feel, citizenship, he leads the reader to the main point of his article. He says that basically, racial domination is a way that rules stay on top. He gives examples of South Africa, the United States and Brazil. South Africa and the United States are similar because white people reigh over black people. Although this is true, there are internal conflicts between the whites in charge. Marx shows the reader through numerous examples that the way the whites are connected is in their quest to be the dominant race in charge. This means in a broad sense, that although the whites fight, they are in common agreement that blacks should be enslaved or discriminated against, and this bonds them. Brazil, however, is a little different. Brazil is a poorer country and has less economic growth. They don’t see the big economic booms like South Africa and the United States did. Also, Brazil has always had slavery and the dominating race was always the Portuguese. In conclusion, Marx says that this racial domination is a way to unite the state in equality. He makes a clear distinction between equality for all and equality for the race that is on top, whether it be white or Portuguese.
In the second article, by Levitzky and Way, comparative authoritarianism is brought up. Levitzky and Way state that competitive authoritarianism is a formal democratic institution that is widely viewed as a tool that can be used to exercise or obtain political authority. Like a regular democracy for a state, there are specific things that each state must do. These things like free and fair elections, individual rights such as the right to vote etc, must extend to all people in that state. But Levitzky and Way bring up a good point. Although there are free and fair elections, they are not so free and not so fair, but they are fair enough to be considered free and fair because no one can disprove that they are not. Together, they bring up four areas of Democratic Contestation. The first, electoral arena, the second, legislative arena, the third, judicial arena and the fourth, the media. If you look carefully at the first, electoral arena, Way and Levitzky talk about the election process. Although elections are held, competition is eliminated either de jure or de facto. The governments make it impossible for other candidates to run by putting them in jail, threatening them, or the extreme attempt of assassination. Their point about the electoral arena is that it can be characterized by large scale problems and there are only few ways to solve these. The second point, the legislative arena, talk about how they are either deadlocked or they cannot function at all. They say that legislatures are controlled like a puppet by the party in charge and tend to be extremely weak. In some countries, the legislature is used as a meeting place for the opposition. The third arena, judicial arena, is just as bad. Despite the attempts to get rid of the people in charge through impeachment and other way such as bribery, extortion, etc., none simply work. Governments often times resort to threats and violence. If you were to pair a failing judicial branch with a failing executive branch, you have a recipe for disaster. This lack of governmental control leaves room for problems to slip right in. The body that has insight over all of these arenas is the media. This brings us to our fourth point. The media is the watchdog over everything that happens. In most cases, the media, like all previously mentioned arenas, is also controlled by governments. Medias are usually censored and if the country cannot gain control over them, they are banned or shut down. Television channels are blocked, newspapers are shut down, magazines and never published, etc. Although the media is in a constant struggle, it is up to them to keep everything in the open and report honestly on the events that take place. With knowing how the institutions in the states are taken advantage of, Levitzky and Way bring us back to their main point: “Authoritarian governments may coexist indefinitely with meaningful democratic institutions”. These institutions, such as branches of government and the media, are considered, under the definition of democracy, to be free until proven otherwise. If the braches can’t function and the media can’t talk about it, how do you address these problems?
The third article, written by Rotberg, addresses failed states and terrorism. He says that because the world seems to become increasingly smaller by each day due to technology, etc., the problems abroad no longer just stay across the ocean. Instead, these problems are violently thrown onto our shores, leaving us, the competition states, to deal with them. You know that a state is failed when you see a number of things. These examples are when living conditions deteriorate; we see foreign exchange shortages, and corruption all starting to flourish. This conflict wouldn’t seem that bad, but the problem is that a state, nowadays, has so many responsibilities, that if one government fails in them, it is not easy for the rest to come in and clean up after the failed state. Performance of States is calculated by GDP and other statistical database. When a state starts to fail, the social contract between the government and the people fails. The people start to move in a different direction than government and using Mexico as a example, you can see what happens when government and people shift in opposite directions. Rotberg also discusses prevention and how certain measures can be taken to ensure that states do not fail. Although there is no magic formula that can guarantee the highs without the lows, Rotberg states that international political will is the main way to keep floating above the water line.d
In all three of these articles, many points are brought up. States are failing while some are thriving. In failing states, or states in danger of failing, government is very corrupt and their practices are very diverse. Methods of bribery and extortion are used to get what the rulers want and the people are so jaded by poverty, poor education, or controlled media coverage, that often the people don’t find out about internal government issues until its too late. There are many ways of governing the people. Racial domination, illegitimate arenas, and the threat of failed states continues to loom over every country. There are ways around it though, thankfully and Levitzky, Way, Rotberg, and Marx talk about it.
In the first article, written by Marx, he states that a state is a somewhere that claims control over a certain society within a territory. Being the good government students that we are, we already knew that. Marx decides to take an extra step and branch out and say that citizenship is the key institutional mechanism for establishing boundaries and conclusions. Now that he has established what a state is and what its people feel, citizenship, he leads the reader to the main point of his article. He says that basically, racial domination is a way that rules stay on top. He gives examples of South Africa, the United States and Brazil. South Africa and the United States are similar because white people reigh over black people. Although this is true, there are internal conflicts between the whites in charge. Marx shows the reader through numerous examples that the way the whites are connected is in their quest to be the dominant race in charge. This means in a broad sense, that although the whites fight, they are in common agreement that blacks should be enslaved or discriminated against, and this bonds them. Brazil, however, is a little different. Brazil is a poorer country and has less economic growth. They don’t see the big economic booms like South Africa and the United States did. Also, Brazil has always had slavery and the dominating race was always the Portuguese. In conclusion, Marx says that this racial domination is a way to unite the state in equality. He makes a clear distinction between equality for all and equality for the race that is on top, whether it be white or Portuguese.
In the second article, by Levitzky and Way, comparative authoritarianism is brought up. Levitzky and Way state that competitive authoritarianism is a formal democratic institution that is widely viewed as a tool that can be used to exercise or obtain political authority. Like a regular democracy for a state, there are specific things that each state must do. These things like free and fair elections, individual rights such as the right to vote etc, must extend to all people in that state. But Levitzky and Way bring up a good point. Although there are free and fair elections, they are not so free and not so fair, but they are fair enough to be considered free and fair because no one can disprove that they are not. Together, they bring up four areas of Democratic Contestation. The first, electoral arena, the second, legislative arena, the third, judicial arena and the fourth, the media. If you look carefully at the first, electoral arena, Way and Levitzky talk about the election process. Although elections are held, competition is eliminated either de jure or de facto. The governments make it impossible for other candidates to run by putting them in jail, threatening them, or the extreme attempt of assassination. Their point about the electoral arena is that it can be characterized by large scale problems and there are only few ways to solve these. The second point, the legislative arena, talk about how they are either deadlocked or they cannot function at all. They say that legislatures are controlled like a puppet by the party in charge and tend to be extremely weak. In some countries, the legislature is used as a meeting place for the opposition. The third arena, judicial arena, is just as bad. Despite the attempts to get rid of the people in charge through impeachment and other way such as bribery, extortion, etc., none simply work. Governments often times resort to threats and violence. If you were to pair a failing judicial branch with a failing executive branch, you have a recipe for disaster. This lack of governmental control leaves room for problems to slip right in. The body that has insight over all of these arenas is the media. This brings us to our fourth point. The media is the watchdog over everything that happens. In most cases, the media, like all previously mentioned arenas, is also controlled by governments. Medias are usually censored and if the country cannot gain control over them, they are banned or shut down. Television channels are blocked, newspapers are shut down, magazines and never published, etc. Although the media is in a constant struggle, it is up to them to keep everything in the open and report honestly on the events that take place. With knowing how the institutions in the states are taken advantage of, Levitzky and Way bring us back to their main point: “Authoritarian governments may coexist indefinitely with meaningful democratic institutions”. These institutions, such as branches of government and the media, are considered, under the definition of democracy, to be free until proven otherwise. If the braches can’t function and the media can’t talk about it, how do you address these problems?
The third article, written by Rotberg, addresses failed states and terrorism. He says that because the world seems to become increasingly smaller by each day due to technology, etc., the problems abroad no longer just stay across the ocean. Instead, these problems are violently thrown onto our shores, leaving us, the competition states, to deal with them. You know that a state is failed when you see a number of things. These examples are when living conditions deteriorate; we see foreign exchange shortages, and corruption all starting to flourish. This conflict wouldn’t seem that bad, but the problem is that a state, nowadays, has so many responsibilities, that if one government fails in them, it is not easy for the rest to come in and clean up after the failed state. Performance of States is calculated by GDP and other statistical database. When a state starts to fail, the social contract between the government and the people fails. The people start to move in a different direction than government and using Mexico as a example, you can see what happens when government and people shift in opposite directions. Rotberg also discusses prevention and how certain measures can be taken to ensure that states do not fail. Although there is no magic formula that can guarantee the highs without the lows, Rotberg states that international political will is the main way to keep floating above the water line.d
In all three of these articles, many points are brought up. States are failing while some are thriving. In failing states, or states in danger of failing, government is very corrupt and their practices are very diverse. Methods of bribery and extortion are used to get what the rulers want and the people are so jaded by poverty, poor education, or controlled media coverage, that often the people don’t find out about internal government issues until its too late. There are many ways of governing the people. Racial domination, illegitimate arenas, and the threat of failed states continues to loom over every country. There are ways around it though, thankfully and Levitzky, Way, Rotberg, and Marx talk about it.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)