Lecture
Power is the ability and ability to impose one's will, to influence the activities and behavior of other people, even in spite of their resistance . The essence of power does not depend on what this opportunity is based on. Power can be based on various methods: democratic and authoritarian, honest and dishonest, violence and revenge, deception, provocation, extortion, incentives, promises, etc.
It is believed that power emerged with the emergence of human society and will in one form or another always accompany its development. It is necessary for the organization of social production, which requires the subordination of all participants to a single will, as well as to regulate other relationships between people in society .
A specific type is political power - the ability of a certain social group or class to exercise its will, to influence the activities of other social groups or classes. Unlike other types of power (family, public, etc.), political power exerts its influence on large groups of people, uses for this purpose a specially created apparatus and specific means. The strongest element of political power is the state and the system of state bodies implementing state power.
The most prominent representatives of the concepts of power, which received the generalized name "theory of social contract", are Thomas Gobbs (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), J.-J. Rousseau (1712-1788).
According to T. Hobbes, the state emerged on the basis of a social contract from a natural pre-state existence, when people lived disconnected and were in a state of "war of all against all." The state was established to ensure universal peace and security. As a result of the social contract, the rights of individual citizens who voluntarily restricted their freedom were transferred to the sovereign. The sovereign was entrusted with the function of safeguarding peace and welfare. The blessing of the people is the supreme law of the state. Taking care of the world is the basis of the natural law created by the social contract.
J. Locke paints the inevitability of state power from the standpoint of the theory of natural law and the "social contract". Only a certain part of “natural rights” is transferred to the government for the sake of effective protection of all others - freedom of speech, faith, and above all property. Legislative power should be separated from the executive (including the judiciary) and “federative” (external relations). And the government itself must obey the law. The people remain unconditional sovereign and have the right not to support and even overthrow an irresponsible government.
J.-J. Rousseau defined the social contract as a historically necessary state of humanity, exercising popular sovereignty and de facto equality through submission to the common will, which expresses the objective interests of the people. The basic principle of the political system is the implementation of direct democracy through a republican state governed by a system of laws adopted by the assembly of all citizens.
M. Weber sources of power considered:
The most primitive source of power is the use or threat of the use of brute force, violence (the despotic power of the father of a family, the power of the criminal offender over his victims).
The state also often resorts to methods of direct violence. But much more often the power in the state is based on the institutions of legal law. To clothe state coercion in virtuous packaging taught rulers even Niccolò Machiavelli.
In the modern, increasingly complex world, a person’s ability to subjugate other people depends more and more on his mental abilities. Intellectual power is sometimes far more effective than brutal violence. Even in the criminal world, the authority of a ringleader is often determined not so much by his physical characteristics as by his ability to plan an unpunished crime.
Moral power, appealing to justice, honesty, duty and other moral values, is more effective in cases where its carrier is able to serve as an example to others in this regard.
Physical, intellectual, psychological and moral capabilities are individualized, a person can possess them independently, without visible dependence on other people. The social source of power is the right, above all the right to property.
Organizational power (administrative resource) is the more noticeable, the more complex the managed social organism. It is she who makes bureaucratic structures so influential not only in the state, but also in large corporations and public organizations.
Recently, possession of information and its distribution channels has become a source of power. The media has long been characterized as the “fourth power”. Less attention is paid to the circulation of information within bureaucratic structures that filter and change it.
The competence of a person is based on his personal skills and knowledge. Competence may be an element of achieving a hierarchical position that has competence - the right to make decisions on specified issues. Such a position is already based on status and strength, dependent on a hierarchical position, and not on individual ability. Real or attributed initial competence is transferred to the position and becomes independent of individuals, institutionalized.
In ancient Greek mythology, the first god Uranus, fearing to die from one of his children, returned them again to the bowels of the earth, but the last born Kronos at the instigation of the mother seduced his father and reigned in his stead, becoming the supreme god. Kronos himself, heeding the prediction that one of his children would deprive him of power, swallowed them as soon as they were born. But one day, his wife Rhea, instead of a newborn, gave him to swallow a stone wrapped in diapers: the god Zeus, who overthrew Kronos and took his place, remained to live. In turn, Zeus himself was predicted that his first wife, Metis, would give him a son, who would take his place - to avoid this, he swallowed his pregnant wife.
In the modern history of Russia, the struggle for power in 1917 stands out, ending with the October Revolution and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, who established their positions in the ensuing Civil War. Of the more recent events, the failed 1991 putsch of 1991 and the Constitutional Crisis in Russia (1992-1993), culminated in the events of October 3-4, 1993 in Moscow.
Political authority is the ability of one person or group of persons to control the behavior of citizens and society, based on national or general state objectives.
This definition will be valid only if the notions of “state power” and “political power” are considered to be identical.
The functions of political power are directly related to the functions of the state in domestic and foreign policy.
Like any power of some people over others, political power can have various sources, resources, usually interpreted as a combination of means, the use of which provides the subject with dominance over the object. There are various approaches to their classification, including - according to the spheres of public life, containing relevant resources: economic, social, cultural, information, power, demographic. Instrumental approach allows you to structure the means of subordination.
Without having any specific resource, political power is able, through the state, to integrate and use all others, that no other power can compete with it. Due to this, it performs its basic functions.
Rational power (or authority) - power based on competence. It helps the person who relies on it to grow.
Rational or legal type of power is most common in modern society. This type of government began to take shape in Western Europe when, in the 13th century, the first obligatory norms of government (Magna Carta, 1215) and rules of self-government (Magdeburg Law) began to appear. Finally, the legal type of power was strengthened in the era of the Great French Revolution (late 18th - early 19th centuries).
Purely theoretically, the legal type of power is an ideal model for the implementation of the concept of the “rule of law”. It is based on the recognition by the population of the justice of those rational and democratic procedures on the basis of which the system of power is formed.
The main elements of legal authority:
Irrational power - power achieved only by force. It serves to exploit subordinates.
To maintain traditional power are the usual and long-existing forms of public life.
Positive features:
Negative traits:
In order for economic power to be exercised, it is necessary to have some kind of wealth that the object has, but not the subject, and the subject needs this wealth. This is power in the economic sphere, "economic". It is control over economic resources: material values, money, equipment, fertile lands, minerals, etc.
Charismatic power based on the exceptional properties possessed by the subject.
The charismatic type of power can be considered the most peculiar. First, it is based on belief in supernatural holiness, heroism, or some other dignity of the leader. Moreover, the authority of his personality extends to the institutions of power, contributes to their recognition and acceptance by the population. Unconditional support of the leader by the population often turns into Caesarism, leaderism and the cult of personality. Secondly, it is often based on the negation of all that was before, that is, it implies that the proposed option of domination is the best. A charismatic leader often comes to power in “troubled times,” when there is no need to rely on the authority of traditions or laws, and the population is ready to support someone who promises a better future.
It is because of the very specifics of the charismatic power that a number of problems arise with the transfer of power.
Mechanisms for the transfer of charismatic power:
If none of these mechanisms for the transfer of power fails, the struggle for power begins within the elite.
Phobocracy (from ancient Greek φ βος and ancient Greek κράτος - “The Power of Fear” ) is an extreme variant of military power based on unquestioning discipline and unity of action.
Authoritarian social relationships mean the division of society into (a few) giving orders and (many) these host orders, depriving individuals (intellectually, emotionally and physically) involved in this process and society as a whole. Human relationships in all walks of life are marked by power, not freedom. And since freedom can be created only by freedom, authoritarian social relations (and the obedience they demand) do not educate (and cannot educate) the individual in freedom - only participation (self-government) in all areas of life can do it.
продолжение следует...
Часть 1 Power. Political power
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Political science
Terms: Political science