UNIT ONE

INTRODUCTION TO BASIC CONCEPTS IN P

OLITICS AND GOVERNMENT STUDIES

Defining Politics, Government and Governance:

Theories and Approaches
{ 1. Understanding Politics
}
Have you ever heard about the following
sayings ?
 I don’t give a shit to politics !
 Man is a political animal !
 Politics is dirty!
Meaning of Politics : What is politics and a politician ?

Politics means different things to different people.

 Politics, and related terms like political and politician, can
have both positive and negative connotations. Politics is
dirty
The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that humans were
“political animals” in that only by engaging
in politics could humans reach their highest potential.
 Politician is someone running for elective office or serving in it or as a person
who is using the skills of a politician in other social interaction.
 A political actor is anyone who is engaged in political activity.
 Politics involves all the actions of government and all the people who work for,
serve, or challenge it.
 So can you imagine life with out politics i.e. without cooperation, compromise,
bargaining ……??
 It would be gibberish and absurd
 As Thomas Hobes said it the repercussion will “ war of all against all”
 Etymological Definition: from Ancient Greek (politiká) 'affairs of
the cities’)
 is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in
groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such
as the distribution of resources or status
 From positivist perspective, Politics is compromising and
nonviolent
 From descriptive, Politics is "the art or science of government",
Various Definitions of Politics
Different scholars, defined it differently
 Harold Lasswell: "who gets what, when, how".
 Who refer to any member of a polity—a political organization that includes actors such as individuals,
groups, corporations, unions, and politicians.
 What refer to government programs, societal resources, access to rights and privileges, or something
as banal as tax breaks.
 When refers to timing. Let’s not forget that often the timing of a thing can be as important as the thing
itself. Quoting a distinguished jurist, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his Letter from Birmingham
Jail in 1963, “Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
 How is very important. Political scientists are keenly interested in the processes through which
someone gets something in a polity,
 whether it be democratic or undemocratic, open or closed, fair or unfair; or which institutional
arrangements are involved, such as constitutions, regulations, and laws;
 or which practices are employed, such as voting, lobbying, demonstrating, and decision making.
 David Easton: "the authoritative allocation of
values for a society".
 Bernard Crick: "a distinctive form of rule whereby
people act together through institutionalized
procedures to resolve differences"
 Adrian Leftwich: "comprises all the activities of
co-operation, negotiation and conflict within and
between societies"
 the science dealing with the form, organisation and
administration of a state or a part of one, and with the
regulation of its relations with other states. (Shorter
Oxford English Dictionary)
 a way of ruling divided societies by a process of free
discussion and without undue violence.(Bernard Crick,
2000).
 the capacity to mobilize the resources of society for the
attainment of goals for which a public commitment . . .
may be made. (Talcott Parsons, 1957)
So long as politics is about power and scarce resources, there are always
winners and losers.
The tools in politics are among others :
 Compromise and cooperation
 Discussion and debate
 Deal making and horse trading
 Barging and story telling
 Bribery and deceit
 What is key in that regards is Violence is not considered as a political tool.
 When politicians fails to use the above tools and opt to use violence it is
deemed they failed politically.
 a case in point is the Ethio- Tigrai war
 Approaches to Politics
There are several ways in which approaching to politics has been conceptualized.
 The extensive view sees politics as present across the sphere of human social
relations
 while the limited view restricts it to certain contexts.
 For example, in a more restrictive way, politics may be viewed as primarily
about governance,[19] while a feminist perspective could argue that sites which have
been viewed traditionally as non-political, should indeed be viewed as political as
well.
 The personal is political, which disputes the distinction between private and public
issues.
 B. Moralism and Realism
For moralists, politics is closely linked to ethics, and is at its
extreme in utopian thinking.
according to Hannah Arendt, the view of Aristotle was that "to be
political…meant that everything was decided through words and
persuasion and not through violence;
While according to Bernard Crick "politics is the way in which free
societies are governed.
For realists, represented by those such as Niccolò Machiavelli,
Thomas Hobbes, and Harold Lasswell,
 Politics is based on the use of power, irrespective of the ends being
pursued.
C. Conflict and Co-operation
Political scientist Elmer Schattschneider argued that "at the
root of all politics is the universal language of conflict,
 while for Carl Schmitt the essence of politics is the distinction
of 'friend' from foe’.
Irish political scientist Michael Laver, who noted that:
Politics is about the characteristic blend of conflict and co-
operation that can be found so often in human interactions.
 Pure conflict is war and Pure co-operation is true love.
Hence, Politics is a mixture of both.
Traditional and Modern Approaches to Politics

 Traditional approach defined political science as

the study of state, government and formal
institutions laying emphasis on the study of formal
legal structures and theoretical part,
 The modern approach has emphasized on the study
of what is actually happening in the state; various
forces, processes and informal structures operating
within the state.
Government: Meaning
 Various scholars defined government in different ways
 it as an institution that holds the exclusive power to
enforce certain rules of social conduct in a given
geographical area.
 refer to the collective group of people that exercises
executive authority in a state.
 It is the means/system by which state policy is enforced,
as well as the mechanism for determining the policy of
the state
What makes a government d/t from other associations?
 Only a government holds a legal monopoly on the use of
physical force
 the decisions and actions of government are binding that
governs the activities of every citizens
 No other association or institution has the authority to
take a decision or an action over all citizens
 Other associations have a final decision only over their
members
 Governance
The Concept of Governance: Government vs
Governance
 In most dictionaries “government” and “governance” are
interchangeably used,
 both denoting the exercise of authority in an organization,
institution or state
 Government is the name given to the entity exercising

that authority

 On the basis of this public/private life division,

 government is restricted to the activities of the state

itself and the responsibilities which are properly

exercised by public bodies.

 Since, the government doesn’t only decide for all and
the civil society and the private sectors play vital role
in the community,
 Hence, the conception of the word “governance” came
to exist
 Governance is a broader term than government.
 Government can therefore be seen as one of the
institutions in governance;
 it is possible to have governance without government .
 Governance: Varying Definitions
 The traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is
exercised” –Kaufman et al
 The way “ … power is exercised through a country’s economic,
political, and social institutions.” – the World Bank’s Handbook.
 “The sound exercise of political, economic, and administrative
authority to manage a country’s resources for development
 “The exercise of economic, political, and administrative authority
to manage a country’s affairs at all levels.
 refers to how any organization, including a nation, is run.
 It includes all the processes, systems, and controls that are
used to safeguard and grow assets.” (UNDP, 1997)
 promoting fairness, transparency and accountability" – World
Bank
 "a system by which business organizations are directed and
controlled".- OECD
 the process of decision-making and the process by which
decisions are implemented (or not implemented).
 Governance as the process whereby societies or organizations make
their important decisions, determine who has voice, who is engaged
in the process and how account is rendered. Institute on Governance

 It is the process through which this group of people make decisions

that direct their collective efforts.
 Why the need to shift from government to governance ?

Neo-liberal reforms and globalization have deeply transformed the institutions

of the welfare state and set the ground for the development of a new type of
polity and style of government.
The passage from government to governance entails three major innovations.
1. At the institutional level, the inception of governance entails a shift away
from traditional hierarchical forms of organization and the adoption of
network forms of organization.
2. Politically, the passage entails a revision of the relationship between state
and civil society in a more participatory direction.
3. From a juridical viewpoint, governance is finally responsible for having
shifted the emphasis from hard law to more flexible forms of soft law and
stressed the superiority of targets and positive incentives as means for
implementation.
 These innovations are said to have produced a more effective and

efficient polity: a polity less dependent on command and control

logics and hubristic developmental visions,

 and therefore less susceptible to government failure.

 They are also held responsible for enabling the nation-state to

restructure itself so as to meet the challenges posed by the

globalization of markets and the processes of cultural and ethnic

creolization the latter brought about

 For this new entity, the goal of government is not that of

homogenizing the political and social space enclosed

within clear-cut and permanent national boundaries,

 but that of enabling local communities to operate

autonomously in an increasingly open world and

promoting sustainable forms of development

 Regardless of sub disciplinary boundaries, political analysts have all

come to perceive governance as a departure from traditional, state-

centred styles of governing.

 Seen from this perspective, it is possible to distinguish three further

types of governance currently discussed in literature:

A. ‘governance by government’,

B. ‘governance with government’ and

C. ‘governance without government’.

 a. Governance by Government
 Focuses on a style of governing carried out by government structures
through the new tools made available by recent political changes:
namely,
(i) the administrative agencies which emerged from the reforms of national
civil services in the 1980s and 1990s,
(ii) the regulative and audit institutions established in parallel to
deregulation policies since the early 1980s,
(iii) the new international regimes brought about by globalization,
 Governance of this type remains firmly under government control
notwithstanding the use of wide and far-reaching forms of
delegation
 B. Governance with government
 refers to forms of political intervention where national
government and its agents act together with NGOs on an equal
basis

 Public–private partnerships, policy and implementation

networks, regional and international authorities like the EU, the
World Bank, the IMF and so on exemplify the set of autonomous
actors involved in this form of co-governance
 Governance without government
 Finally, we have a form of governance where the business of governing

is carried out without the formal involvement of state actors,

 but it is entirely left to various societal agents and NGOs

 This is the type of governance that has drawn more attention and is

often identified more closely with the term itself.

 For Sørensen, ‘governance by government will tend to be replaced by

governance with and without government’

In conclusion;
 Current use does not treat governance as a synonym for government.
 Rather governance signifies a change in the meaning of government, referring to a
new process of governing;
 or a changed condition of ordered rule; or the new method by which society is
governed.
 So far, so simple; but the problems of definition become acute when specifying this
new process, condition or method.
 There are at least six separate uses of governance:
1. as the minimal state,
2. as corporate governance,
3. as the new public management,
4. as ‘good governance’,
5. as a socio-cybernetic system,
6. as self-organizing networks.
 APPROACHS T0 GOVERNANCE

 We can identify two main approaches to governance:

 A reconstructive and a comparative one

 The reconstructive approach develops empirical, microstudies that account for the

changes that have occurred in all fields related to decision-making, policy-making

and policy-implementation.

 According to the orientations of the analysts involved, these studies focus either on
institutional change (neo-institutionalists) or processual innovations
(neofunctionalists).
The comparative approach
interested in middle-level inquiries where abstract,
analytical categories are elaborated and compared
with each other.
{ 1.2
The State, Nation
and Nation States }
 Meaning and Definition of State
 Etymology: derived from the Latin word status, meaning
"condition, circumstances". Latin status derives
from stare, "to stand", or remain or be permanent, thus
providing the sacred or magical connotation of the
political entity.
 There is no academic consensus on the definition of the
state.
 The term "state" refers to a set of different, but
interrelated and often overlapping, theories about a
certain range of political phenomena
 Various Definitions of A State
 To Woodrow Wilson, “State is people organized for law within a
definite territory.”
 Aristotle defined the State as a “union of families and villages
having for its end a perfect and self – sufficing life by which it
meant a happy and honourable life”.
 Prof. Laski defines “State as a territorial society divided into
government and subjects whose relationships are determined by
the exercise of supreme coercive power.”
 The state as a compulsory political organization with a
centralized government that maintains a
monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain
territory Max weber
 Weber writes that the state "is a human community that
(successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of
physical force within a given territory
 Tilly defines states as "coercion-wielding organizations that are
distinct from households and kinship groups and exercise clear
priority in some respects over all other organizations within
substantial territories
According to Walter Scheidel, mainstream definitions of the state have the
following in common:

 "centralized institutions that impose rules,

 and back them up by force, over a territorially circumscribed population;

 a distinction between the rulers and the ruled;

 and an element of autonomy, stability, and differentiation.

 Modern academic definitions of the state frequently include the criteria

that a state has to be recognized as such by the international
community
Nation Definition; What is nation & how it differs from state &nation-state ?

Etymological definition
 The English word nation came from the Latin natio represents the
children of the same birth and also a human group of same origin
Different definitions
 Nation has many definitions. Sometimes it is erroneously used as a
synonym for state
Black's Law Dictionary defines a nation as follows:
nation, n. (14c) 1. A large group of people having a common origin,
language, and tradition and usu. constituting a political entity.
 When a nation is coincident with a state, the term nation-state is often
used....
 A community of people inhabiting a defined territory and organized under an
independent government; a sovereign political state....[2]
 The word "nation" is sometimes used as synonym for:
 State (polity) or sovereign state: a government that
controls a specific territory, which may or may not be
associated with any particular ethnic group
 Country: a geographic territory, which may or may not
have an affiliation with a government or ethnic group
 A nation is limited to a cultural identity without statehood.

 The nation does not govern a sovereign territory

 Political scientist Benedict Anderson defined nations as "imagined

communities" that are "limited and sovereign.“

 While nations are tied to a specific territory across space and time,
nations are not natural.

 They are human-made; they are imagined.

 Members of a nation do not all know each other.

 With hundreds of thousands, hundreds of millions, and even over a

billion, it would be impossible for all members of a nation to meet each
other.
 Not everyone is involved in the same nation; there are certain
membership criteria.
 As for sovereignty, the nation is free from foreign control and can manage
its own affairs.
 If a nation lacks its own state, it is not a nation-state.
Nation-State
 According to the nation state model the nation precedes the state
and hence it plays a major role to its formation.
 Accordingly, the state’s role is to protect and express the nation
hence the bond between the two is deep and profound.
 In other words, the nation provides the state with a strong identity
in international arena and solid base of domestic legitimacy.
 Out of the 193 states of the world, only 20 or so can be classified as
nation-states.
 Example: Iceland, Japan and Italy
Multination- state
 This modal comprises those states which contain
two or more substantially complete nations within
their boundaries.
 Two sub-types exist with this modal: Federative and
Imperial state.
 Nation Nation-State

 A cultural identity without

statehood.
 The nation does not govern a  A sovereign state in which the
sovereign territory. cultural borders of a nation match
 This applies to ethnic groups
but also religions, multi- the borders of the state.
ethnic language groups, etc.
 Nationalism, Nation-building and Ethnicity
Defining Ethnicity
 Ethnicity has been best defined within cultural
anthropology, but it has been a debated topic and there
is no single definition or theory of how ethnic groups are
formed.
 The true origins of “ethnic” have been traced back to
Greece and the term ethnos, which was used in
reference to band, tribe, race, a people, or a swarm.
 In more recent colonial and immigrant history, the term
“ethnic” falls under the dichotomy of “Us” and “Them.”
 The “Us,” the majority, are viewed as non-ethnics and the “Them,”
new immigrants or minorities, as ethnic.
 Variations of the term have developed, including ethnic identity,
ethnic origin, ethnocentrism, and ethnicism (Hutchinson and Smith
1996:4–5).
 Ethnic identity or origin refers to an individual’s ancestral heritage.
 Ethnocentrism is a belief that your cultural community or ancestry is
superior to all others, resulting in dislike or hatred of any material,
behavioral, or physical characteristics different than your own.
 Ethnicism is defined as a “movement of protest and resistance on
behalf of [ethnics] against oppressive and exploitative outsiders”
(Hutchinson and Smith 1996:5)
Hutchinson and Smith’s (1996:6–7)

An ethnic group consists of six main features that include:

1. a common proper name, to identify and express the “essence” of
the community;
2. a myth of common ancestry that includes the idea of common
origin in time and place and that gives an ethnie a sense of fictive
kinship;
3. shared historical memories, or better, shared memories of a
common past or pasts, including heroes, events, and their
commemoration;
4. one or more elements of common culture, which need not be
specified but normally include religion, customs, and language;
5. a link with a homeland, not necessarily its physical
occupation by the ethnie, only its symbolic attachment to the
ancestral land, as with diaspora peoples; and

6. a sense of solidarity on the part of at least some sections of

the ethnie’s population.
Concepts of Nationalism: Classical and Liberalism
Nationalism focuses upon:
(1)the attitude that the members of a nation have when they
care about their national identity,
(2)and (2) the actions that the members of a nation take
when seeking to achieve (or sustain) some form of
political sovereignty.
 Classical nationalism :
 is the political program that sees the creation and
maintenance of a fully sovereign state owned by a given
ethno-national group (“people” or “nation”) as a primary
duty of each member of the group.
 It claims that a primary duty of each member is to abide
by one’s recognizably ethno-national culture in all
cultural matters.
 Liberal nationalists see liberal-democratic principles and pro-
national attitudes as belonging together.
 Yael Tamir, started the debate in her 1993 book and in her recent
book talks about the nation-state as “an ideal meeting point between
the two
 see the feeling of national identity as a feeling that promotes
solidarity, and solidarity as means for increased social justice
 Liberal nationalists diverge about the value of multiculturalism
 Definition of Nation Building

 Nation Building is process of developing a developed nation through

collective, united, and systematized efforts
 Modern nation building refers to the efforts taken by the newly independent
nations, to redefine the populace of territories that had been carved out by
colonial powers or empires without regard to ethnic, religious, or other
boundaries
 Nation ­building includes the creation of national equipment such as flags,
anthems, national days, national stadiums, national airlines, national
languages, and national myths
 At a deeper level, national identity needed to be deliberately constructed by
molding different ethnic groups into a nation, especially since in many
newly established states colonial practices of divide and rule had resulted in
ethnically heterogeneous populations.
 “Nation Building and Nation formation is the broad process through which

Nations come into being.

 Nation building wishes at the association of the people within the state and

tries to bring a politically stable and practicable state with a long existence”.

 “Nation Building and Legitimate authority in modern national states are

connected to popular rule, to majorities.

 Nation building is the process through which these majorities are

constructed”. Mylonas Harr

 “Nation Building is broad spectrum and wide

ranging process, which begins after the creation

of a nation state so as to make it viable,

cohesive, and well-organized, autonomous and

widely acceptable entity”. Myron Weiner

 Mechanisms of Nation Building
 The mechanisms of nation building are the indicators for judging the progress of the
process of nation building in a state.
(a) Support of the people­: Nation Building is made through the constant and
enthusiastic provision of the people to the community, the administration, and the
power holders.
(b) Leader­A Nation is built under the vigilant guidance of the leader. A committed,
devoted and dedicated national leader is only able to build a vibrant nation.
c. Goals and Co-operation of the people­Nation building is meant for achieving the
national’s goals, objectives and cooperation and coordination among the peoples of the
nation.
 Respect for national symbols­Nation building teaches the peoples of the nation
to respect for their nationals’ symbols like National Flag, National Anthem, etc
 Territorial Integrity- Nation building is based on the principle of territorial
integration not only among the states but among the nation-states.
 National priority and National identity- Identity is the national priority of a
nation. A nation aims to preserve national identity, unity, and integrity.
 (Public literacy and freedom- Nation Building aims to establish a high level of
public literacy and freedom from orthodoxism, radicalism, parochialism, and
conventionalism etc
Instrument of Nation Building
 ­The qualities and commitments of intellectual elite free from
cast, communal and religious barriers always acting as a big instrument of
nation building.
 Role of the fourth pillar of Democracy- Mass media is the fourth
pillar of democracy which is very alert, active and an effective instrument
of political socialization, modernization, and development.
 Nation Building as discipline­Nation Building is a process and
consistent march towards economic growth, political development, and
social justice.
 Nation Building as a process of development- Nation Building aims
in bringing development of national participants, developed and civic
political culture.
 Effective state-controlled mechanism – A nation is built with the
development of effective, efficient, and systematic state control mechanisms.
 National integration- The thing which binds the people of a nation in one
thread, one nation is the national integration.
 It is an emotional and psychological feeling which binds the people of a
nation in one bond and tends towards development of a nation
In general, Nation Building is a process of building the following:
(a)State Building
(b)People Building
(c) Democracy Building
(d) Citizen Building
(e) Economy Building
(f) Social Building
(g) Government Building
Why and how nation building fails?
THANK YOU