End of Year Reflection

Around the world there are several types of governments. The world as we know it has different ideologies taking in political terms. The world is divided into democracies and non-democratic governments. As we know in every country there are different political parties that represent the voice of the people. The importance of a politics is immeasurable due to its vast influence in all social aspects. The way in which society functions varies from country to country. As we know political parties arose in the 18^th and 19^th century. It was then that democracy started to grow up to what we know it now in days. Politics are a game that is mysterious and very spontaneous. Political science would not exist if there were issues that arise after political conflicts. I believe that every action is a political act. My view on politics of how policies are created and structured show how complex and deep it is for a governments to make changes, yet they are always possible since our modern society is proof of such changes. Beyond the different governmental systems the main key to each country is to find the social welfare of its people as a priority and main concern. The world would not be the way we are so accustomed to live it if it was not by politics. The next fifty years I predict that our society will change and new forms of governments shall arise to replace a democracy in which its bases are democracy as a whole and common treat for all the people. Having said this, my reflection of six months studying political science my eyes open and I’m illuminated of the cosmopolitan world in which we live in, and realize how alike we are one to each other.

How governments and politics are set up.

Presidential and Parliamentary Governments

            Around the world there are several types of governments. In a democracy you have a Parliamentary government or a Presidential Government. Around the world in most democracies we find that they tend to be parliamentary. Like in any type of decision making there are pros and cons on the actions a government takes. In a presidential government the legislative and the executive branches work independently from each other yet both work to help their country out. Although both legislative and executive work together to create laws they don’t always agree and conflict arises. Then we have the parliamentary in which both the executive and the legislative work together to function properly.

            One of the main advantages of the parliamentary system is that the government can respond rather directly to changed circumstances because power is unified. In this system all it takes to make a law is the majority of voted in the parliament. A second advantage to a parliamentary system is that the lines of responsibility for policy making are very clear. Voters know exactly who to blame for their current situation. Parties can then be held responsible once they are in office because there is nothing to prevent them from accomplishing in office what they said they would.

A disadvantage of the parliamentary system is that there are few protections for a minority that feels it is being wronged. In a presidential system, a minority may hope that even if it has lost its fight in the legislature, it may retrieve things with the president. This can also be viewed as an advantage because policy making is straightforward and efficient. Another disadvantage to the parliamentary system is that it may produce an unstable government. If no party holds the majority of the seats, then two or more parties in it disagree on enough things, it may be hard to keep them together and cooperating for very long.

As opposed to the way in which the premier and cabinet hold control over the ordinary members in parliament, the president has little control over the careers and advancement of members of the legislature. Secondly, there is no guarantee that the party that holds the presidency will also control the legislature, because the two parts of the government apparatus are elected independently.

The difference between a state with a parliamentary system and one with a presidential system are several. Policy leadership is often more clearly lodged with a president than with a parliamentary cabinet. Comprehensive policy is more difficult to accomplish in a presidential system. Recruitment of executive leaders differs vastly. There are special problems for review and control of the executive in a presidential system. And lastly the symbolic and political aspects of the executive are unified in a presidential system but split in a parliamentary one.

The major types of governments in a democracy are the presidential and the parliamentary governments. Both systems are different from each other and do not coincide with one another. Like most of the political systems there are positive and negative aspects for such. The most outstanding quality of the parliamentary government is due to its efficiency in policy making and agreeing with both executive and legislative. On the other hand we find that presidential mostly focuses on their leaders and the role they play. Also both do no executive and legislative don’t get along well. Both types of governments are great ways to lead a country yet there are always flaws.The difference between each type of government.

Suffrage

Elections are somewhat new to our modern cosmopolitan society. Elections arose after the development of political parties in the 18^th and 19^th century when democracies after the French Revolution happened. Now in days elections are held all around the world in a massive way although no every country is democratic, yet that is the primary goal of a government to achieve that political state and have balance with its people.

Why are elections so in vogue? Part of the answer is that “democracy” is a synonym of respectability. Even states that are not democratic wish to appear democratic, and holding elections is one of the easiest ways to follow some of the forms of democracy. One example of an autocratic state in which elections figured importantly is the Soviet Union before 1989. A second reason is that elections allow a huge mass of people to select their leaders and policies.

While we do not normally think of elections in democracies as functioning to build support for the system, it can be shown that elections serve this purpose as much in democracies as in autocracies. In 1968 before and after the elections American voters were asked if they felt that by voting they were involved in the government surprisingly they said they did not care, but after a massive electoral campaign in 1972 Americans claimed that they felt happy with the government and that they felt included by voting.

Many elections are based on the principle of "one person, one vote", meaning that every voter's votes are counted with equal weight. This is not true of all elections, however. Corporate elections, for instance, usually weight votes according to the amount of stock each voter holds in the company, changing the mechanism to "one share, one vote." Votes can also be weighted unequally for other reasons, such as increasing the voting weight of higher-ranked members of an organization.

Single-member district plurality voting (SMDP) is the system most commonly used for legislative elections in the United States. It is the one most people think of when they think of the word "voting." In Great Britain and Canada, this system is often called "first-past-the-post”. How It Works. In this system, all the candidates appear on the ballot and the voters indicate their choice of one of them--by marking an X, etc.

 Vote

All the votes are then counted and the winner is the one with the most votes. Winners need not collect a majority of the votes, only more votes than their opponents do--a plurality of the votes. So if candidate A receives 40% of the vote, candidate B receives 35%, and candidate C gets 25% -- candidate A wins the seat.

It is evident that not all of those who are capable to vote do vote. In 2000 American presidential election, for instance, only 50 percent of those who were eligible to vote did so. In Great Britain 71% voted, Czech Republic 76%, Germany 82%, Sweden 81%. European democracies usually exhibit higher levels of electoral participation than the USA.

Suffrage is a constitutional right we all have. By the means of elections is how political leaders and political parties approach the common people. Elections are another way to unify a country to get involved in its governmental duties. Not all governments are democracies like the Canada, Sweden, Norway, or Finland yet the suffrage is a way to unify its people. The reason why countries that don’t have a democracy have elections is because it’s a synonym of respectability and all governments want to appear as so, plus it gives somewhat level of social control.

A sketch of what voting looked like before

Interest Groups and Politics

The word interest by first instance we know it something that will attract a person, or a group. After seeing the tittle of the chapter we know that interest groups and politics have something in common. Yet in politics candidate and government officials are supported by different groups that as a goal are to obtain social power. The term interest group refers to any voluntary association that looks after public promotion and creates advantages for its cause. Political parties could not be held if it was not by their interest groups that they are supported by.

Some are organized with the purpose of lobbying governmental officials on behalf of one or another cause. For instance, the Sierra Club in the United States. It’s an organization that lobbies for the preservation of wilderness areas. Other groups may be organized primarily for other purposes but take on lobbying and other ways of influencing policy as an important task.

A university is a clear example of this. Their primary goal is to educate students and conduct research but is likely to maintain one or two people to affect the government on bills that concern it.

There is a high number of interest groups in a modern state, so many that it is considerably hard to count them. Interest groups are not confined to democracies or open societies. Every single state has interest groups. Some do not permit a wide diversity of formally organized, politically active groups to exist, since this would seem threatening to their governments.

However, even in such states, organizations set up for other purposes. For instance, institutions such as the army, universities, scientific associations, sports clubs, natural history clubs, and factories exert political influence to held mold the government policies.

Interest groups are probably the main vessel in most states for representing public opinion and bringing it to bear in an organized way on the governmental authorities. Political parties cannot do this very well, because they are involved in trying to acquire governmental power for themselves.

  

Perhaps the most universal and significant break between groups that are readily organized and those that are difficult to organize is represented by producer interests and consumer interests.

A producer interest is any group of people involved in producing some good. For any product, there may be a few producer interests: a corporation, a trade union, and one or more professional organizations.

On the other hand, a consumer interest group is a group of people consuming a product. Most people who share in consuming a product are not formally organized, that is why it is hard to provide examples of these.

Producer interests are always easier to organize than consumer interests since their interest is more focused on certain thing. This is something that happens all over the world. As a result, the government policies favor greatly the producers. Some interest groups can speak strongly and confidently as representatives of their interest, and they are listened to with respect.

The internal structure of interest groups is not very democratic; therefore, there is a real danger that their leaders may gradually drift away from the ordinary members and follow their own political line. Democratic accountability to the membership could prevent this, but in its absence, there is little to keep it from happening.

There are three mayor types of interest groups. They are the following: sectorial, institutional and promotional interest groups.

The sectorial groups are those that represent a sector of the economy. For instance a corporation, a union, an association of members of a profession, or, less frequently, a consumer groups.  Sectorial groups are usually effective. They also dominate most interest group systems.

The second type of interest group is institutional. They are set up primarily for purposes other than political activity and would certainly existed if they did not deal with politics; they become politically active only to defend their own interests in the state’s decisions.

Finally, the promotional groups, they organize around an idea or a point of view to support ethnic groups, foreign positions or religious values. They have increased throughout the decades around the world.

Without the need of an interest group we have a lack of a well-supported government. With the help provided from the interest group and the government, a favor for favor is their main goal. Throughout this process is how interest groups obtain their power from government and influence in decision making of policies and creation of laws. Interest groups for the most part are benefited economically.Interest groups

Bureaucracy and the Public Sector

            The people who make decisions on a government are bureaucracies. A bureaucracy is people who have the charge of making policies and decision making. A great deal of the government is make policies for the common people have a better standard of living. Yet not everyone agrees with their task since in a state it is hard to please the majority of people. Bureaucrats don’t have much power, and it tends to be illegal for them to participate in political activities since it influences over advantages in political parties. Bureaucracies have had several reforms and adjustments since there have been times in which some bureaucrats have abused of their power. A government is very unlikely to be perfectly efficient since most governments face the problem of injustice and lack of equality.

            Some parts of policy making are done by such large number of people poses something of a problem for the state. Public administrators as a group have significant governmental power, yet they are too numerous and individually too unimportant to be controlled effectively. Therefore, a significant part of the governmental power of any state is necessarily not under close political control.

            The way in which we organize our public administration should aim to help us maximize some desirable traits. They are the following: honest, accurate translation of political leaders’ decisions into more specifically designed policies. Flexibility in dealing with special cases at the point of delivery; while administrators should be obedient to directions from above, they should not be slavishly obedient. This flexibility should be used arbitrarily, meaning that even if the public officer is not from same political party they work efficient.

            Bureaucracy is one way to organize the public administration. The word “bureaucracy” is often used in common languages to mean the public administration, usually with a concentration of distaste. However, social sciences have precise meaning for it: a particular model of administrative organization that was developed as a reform in the nineteenth century and spread widely to be the most generally used mode today.

            As noted previously, there is no ideal way to organize administration. Of the various things that may be desirable in public administration, bureaucracy is particularly strong, on the accurate translation of leaders’ decisions and on preventing arbitrary behavior. Believe it or not, it is also rather efficient.

            A problem with bureaucratic organization stems from a combination of two factors: 1. the difficulty in public administration, as compared with private business, of evaluating how well a person has performed a job, 2. the requirement in a bureaucracy that administrators be shielded from direct political pressure, usually by a system of tenure. In a private business, a standard yardstick is available to evaluate how well a person has done in a job. It profits have gone up in the person’s sector, if sales have been high, or whatever, if a person has made money from a company, then the job has been done well.

            Although bureaucracy is only one way to organize the public administration, it is the dominant mode of organization across the world, as we have seen. Indeed it is so dominant that the world bureaucracy has become almost a synonym for public administration, in much the way that “Kleenex” has become to be a synonymous with facial tissues.

Stereotype of what Bureaucrats do.        

    In various parts of the world, adjustments have evolved or have been invented that can soften bureaucracy when it is excessively “bureaucratic.” Among these are the office of ombudsman, provision for opening government files for inspection, informal interference in the bureaucracy by political leaders, and pressure from public opinion. There are four adjustments to bureaucracy that are taken into account in a state: the office of ombudsman is a Swedish invention. An ombudsman is a government office whose primary duty is to seek out citizens complaints of abuse by public administrators and to negotiate changes in the offending practices. The second is the freedom of information law have been passed in many countries, and the US has been a pioneer n this direction. The third adjustment is “Interference” in administration by political leaders may act as safety valve to help correct abuses. The fourth adjustment is pressure from public opinion can help to correct bureaucratic sluggishness and abuse.

The members of the public administration pose a dilemma for a state’s political party leaders. They are too numerous and individually too minor to control effectively, yet collectively they have a major impact on policies. We have discussed in previous articles various way by which the state may address its dilemmas, establishment of the bureaucratic model, adjustments to the bureaucratic model, attempts to achieve “representative bureaucracy”, but none of these can be fully successful. This is a problem of politics in which “half a loaf” may be the best one can hope for. As it is seen in most governments around the world the biggest problem tends to be the inefficient way in which a government runs. A government runs well has an appropriate administration, its citizens will be happy, therefore the government will have followers who support them.

Political Parties

                                                             Political Parties

      Finding a group in which we find ourselves with people who we share same ideological characteristics is fascinating. There are several types of groups, yet one of the most important groups we have to find in society is a political group. There are several types of political groups that are known as  “Political Parties”. There are many types of political parties with several ideologies that we may find. Some can be right-wing ideologies, some left-wing ideologies too. In a government there can be different systems o political parties such as: one party system, dominant party system, two party systems, and multiple party systems. A very important role of political parties is to socialize the common citizen and govern a country.

      A political party is defined as groups of people in whom we find ourselves identified with and share the same political ideological terms, morals, and life styles. Around the world there are many political parties. Some are socialist, others democratic, communist, and even religious. Parties have leaders and they guide their followers. Some times we wonder why political leaders need to move masses and give out speeches if they already have their followers. Well, this is so because this is done to reassure that they are going to guarantee what they have promised.  Political leaders are representatives of the people of a country.
       After the introduction of the democratic system there was a shift in the way that political parties worked. Back two hundred years, to enter political parties you had to buy your position in the party, to make an appointment and try to enter, be born on it, or have someone introduce you into the party. Modern political parties are not so old. The two oldest political parties are in the US, and Britain.
       Political parties have a very important role in society and it is to socialize. Not all political parties have the same ideology as others. But their followers find somewhat level of learning on them. Most democratic governments support political parties because this leads people to go out and vote. Voting is one of the constitutional rights for most people in a democracy. All political leaders now in modern day have to go out and persuade people to vote for them to get votes. Now to buy an office position in government is illegal. That is why political leaders have to lead political campaigns to gain these types of powers.

     There are 4 types of political systems in different states. The first is a one party system in which only one party holds power and there are non-political parties but one, an example a dictatorship such as Cuba. Than the second system is dominant party system in which one party holds power and is similar to the one party system although it varies because we can find other political parties in those types of countries that have dominant political parties, an example can be Venezuela. The third type of system is a two party system in which two political parties hold power and are in a constant shift of a dispute for power in a democratic form that are elections, an example of a two party system is the USA. The fourth type system is a multiple party system in which several parties are involved in government. An example of a multiple party system is Norway in which its past elections had eight different political parties that achieved a political achievement by getting some of their officials elected.

     Political parties are very important for a country since they help common people get identified with people who they share same political ideologies. Political parties are open for people who desire to enter and participate. Political leaders help the young Politian’s who will become the next political leaders. Political parties are important to governments because they help as guidance to its citizens and help them obtain future followers who will support the government in a future. Political parties are like soccer teams in which they play matches to see who is the best by running campaigns. Political parties may seem nice and accepting to those who they share their political ideologies although if certain groups do not agree with them you have disputes as it happens in some countries you may have social revolutions. Political parties are although more positive than a negative aspect since they unify the people of a country one way or another.

Political parties

Political Parties

Different ideological paths

Democracy and Its Recent Surges in the World

         A Democracy is a state in which all fully qualified citizens vote at regular intervals to choose, from among alternative candidates who are the future policy makers and diplomatic leaders of a country. States are formed by people that choose a leader in something called elections. Having elections is characteristic of democratic governments. Half of the world is divided into either a democracy or an autocratic government. Although only a small part of the world has a stable democracy. After certain event in the 20^th century it was then that democracy started to get popular. Yet if democracy is not the best and perfect form of government, it is now the most fair that we have. There have been three important waves that helped catapult democracy and spread it around the world.

         Democracy requires an implicit agreement by the conflicting groups in a state to accept the possibility that they will lose out in making of policy in effect, it requires an agreement on all the different sectors of society for a policy to be done and approved, this is a characteristic of democracy and how it works by voting and voicing out opinion. Each group accepts that it must abide by the end result and hopes that it will be able to get enough of what it wants out of a process. This is known as the democratic barging.

The Iron Curtain

         In 1989 the world imagination was seized when the Iron Curtain fell, and the Berlin Wall with it and most of the communist states of Eastern Europe threw off their old systems and established democracies of some sort. Southern Europe saw three shifts from right-wing dictatorships to democracies in the late 1970’s: in Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Later, a wave of democratization swept Latin America, making several military dictatorships become democratic governments. The same waves went on in the 1980’s in Eastern Europe and other countries around the world. Democracy was very fragile in most countries and some even lost it due to military regimes once again.

         There were 3 main waves that helped the spread of democracy around the world. The first wave of democratization came in the wake of WWI, as Germany became a democracy in 1918 and democracies were created in Easter Europe, at this same time several Latin States were turning into democracies. Although many of the democracies established at this time failed either under economic pressure of the Great Depression, or due to the violence of WWII. The second wave of democratization occurred after WWII when several communist countries turned into democracies and a large number of former European colonies in the South gained independence. The third wave is thought to have started in the late 1970’s with the successful reintroduction of democracy to Spain and Portugal.

         Democracies over the past fifty years have gained popularity, although the book “Power and Choice” from 2003 does not talk about the fourth wave. We can now see it happening. The fourth wave could be seen as the Arab Spring, the widespread of the democracies in the Arab countries of Africa and Middle East is an example of how democracies are being spread around the world. Democracy is like to a relative freedom which is a characteristic that democracies do posses and autocratic governments rarely posses. Fighting for democracies involves many times civil wars and many social movements that we now tend to see around the world. Although many people don’t agree with democracy, the majority does and it continues to spread. I predict that the next two waves will be in South Easter Asia, and then in Latin America in about 30 years from now.

The Berlin Wall