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Aspects of government
Governments vary greatly, as do the relationships of citizens of a state to its government.
Abuse of power
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The leaders of governments are human beings, and given human nature, what constitutes good governance has been a subject written about since the earliest books known. In the western tradition Plato wrote extensively on the question, most notably in The Republic. He (in the voice of Socrates) asked if the purpose of government was to help ones friends and hurt ones enemies, for example. Aristotle, Plato's student picked up the subject in his treatise on Politics. Many centuries later, John Locke addressed the question of abuse of power by writing on the importance of checks and balances to prevent or at least constrain abuse. It is believed that Thomas Jefferson was influenced by John Locke.
Legitimacy
The concept of legitimacy is central to the study of governments. Statists have attempted to formalize ways to legitimize government or state authority.
Social contract theorists, such as Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rosseau, believe that governments reduce people's freedom/rights in exchange for protecting them, and maintaining order. Many people question however, whether this is an actual exchange (where people voluntarily give up their freedoms), or whether they are taken by threat of force by the ruling party.
Other statist theorists, like David Hume, reject social contract theory on the grounds that, in reality, consent is not involved in state-individual relationships and instead offer different definitions of legitimacy based on practicality and usefulness.
Anarchists, on the other hand, claim that legitimacy for an authority must be consensual and reject the concept of states altogether; For them, authority must be earned not self-legitimated. For example, a police officer does not earn his authority as a doctor does since the authority is voluntarily transferred to the doctor while the police officer just takes it.
Criticised aspects
War
In the most basic sense, people of one nation will see the government of another nation as the enemy when the two nations are at war. For example, the people of Carthage saw the Roman government as the enemy during the Punic wars.
Enslavement
In early human history, the outcome of war for the defeated was often enslavement. The enslaved people would not find it easy to see the conquering government as a friend.
Religious opposition
People with religious views opposed to the official state religion will have a greater tendency to view that government as their enemy. A good example would be the condition of Roman Catholicism in England before the Catholic Emancipation. Protestants—who were politically dominant in England—used political, economic and social means to reduce the size and strength of Catholicism in England over the 16th to 18th centuries, and as a result, Catholics in England felt that their religion was being oppressed.
Class oppression
Whereas capitalists in a capitalist country may tend to see that nation's government positively, a class-conscious group of industrial workers—a proletariat—may see things very differently. If the proletariat wishes to take control of the nation's productive resources, and they are blocked in their endeavors by continuing adjustments in the law made by capitalists in the government, then the proletariat will come to see the government as their enemy—especially if the conflicts become violent.
The same situation can occur among peasants. The peasants in a country, e.g. Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great, may revolt against their landlords, only to find that their revolution is put down by government.
Critical views and alternatives
The relative merits of various forms of government have long been debated by philosophers, politicians and others. However, in recent times, the traditional conceptions of government and the role of government have also attracted increasing criticism from a range of sources. Some argue that the traditional conception of government, which is heavily influenced by the zero-sum perceptions of state actors and focuses on obtaining security and prosperity at a national level through primarily unilateral action, is no longer appropriate or effective in a modern world that is increasingly connected and interdependent.
Human security
One such school of thought is human security, which advocates for a more people-based (as opposed to state-based) conception of security, focusing on protection and empowerment of individuals. Human security calls upon governments to recognise that insecurity and instability in one region affects all and to look beyond national borders in defining their interests and formulating policies for security and development. Human security also demands that governments engage in a far greater level of cooperation and coordination with not only domestic organisations, but also a range of international actors such as foreign governments, intergovernmental organisations and non-government organisations.
Whilst human security attempts to provide a more holistic and comprehensive approach to world problems, its implementation still relies to a large extent on the will and ability of governments to adopt the agenda and appropriate policies. In this sense, human security provides a critique of traditional conceptions of the role of government, but also attempts to work within the current system of state-based international relations. Of course, the unique characteristics of different countries and resources available are some constraints for governments in utilising a human security framework.
Anarchism
Anarchists are those who disagree with using government violence as a means to solve complex social issues - or, in other words, they say that no entity can be self-legitimated to use force and explicit consent is necessary for legitimacy within a collective group or government. There are many forms of anarchist theories but under anarchy, these many different groups and individuals would seemingly need to deal with each other in the same way that people deal with their neighbors in the real world. Some anarchists, such as anarcho-syndicalists or anarcho-primitivists, advocate egalitarianism and non-hierarchical societies while others, such as anarcho-capitalists, advocate free markets, individual sovereignty and freedom.
See also: anarchy in international relationsSee also
Levels of civil government:
- World government
- Supranational union
- Sovereign state
- Province
- County
- Regional government
- Municipality
- Village or neighborhood
- School district
- Special-purpose district
Notes
- http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/john-locke-natural-rights-to-life-liberty-and-property/
- http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/influence.html
- E.L. Skip Knox. "The Punic Wars". Department of History, Boise State University. Retrieved 2007-12-14.
- "CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: England (Since the Reformation)". www.newadvent.org. 1913. Retrieved 2007-12-14.
- Christian 358
References
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- executive editor, Joseph P. Pickett (1992). American Heritage dictionary of the English language (4th ed.). 222 Berkeley Street, Boston, MA 02116: Houghton Mifflin Company. pp. 572, 770. ISBN 0-395-82517-2.
{{cite book}}:|author=has generic name (help); Unknown parameter|ids=ignored (help)CS1 maint: location (link) - Christian, David (2004). Maps of Time. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24476-1.
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- McKay, John P. (1996). A History of World Societies. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN 0-395-75379-1.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Miller, George A. (2006). "WordNet Search 3.0". WordNet a lexical database for the English language. Princeton University/Cognitive Science Laboratory /221 Nassau St./ Princeton, NJ 08542. wordnet:earth science. Retrieved 2007-11-10.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Nebel, Bernard J. (2007). Environmental Science (7th ed.). Prentice Hall, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. ISBN 0-13-083134-4.
{{cite book}}: Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - Schulze, Hagen (1994). States, Nations and Nationalism. Blackwell Publishers Inc, 350 Main Street, Malden, Massachusetts 02148, USA.
- Higham, Charles F. W. (2004). "Indus Valley Civilization". Ancient and Medieval History Online. New York: Facts On File, Inc. Retrieved 2007-12-07.
- Kenoyer, J. M. Ancient Cities of the Indus Civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998
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- Indus Age: The Writing System. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996
- “Revolution in the Urban Revolution: The Emergence of Indus Urbanisation,” Annual Review of Anthropology 19 (1990): 261–282.
- Higham, Charles F. W. (2004). "History of ancient and medieval Asia". Ancient and Medieval History Online. New York: Facts On File, Inc. Retrieved 2007-12-07.