1102GIR Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Deinstitutionalisation, Responsible Government, English Army
4 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
L2. Comparing Political Institutions
Lecture Aims
By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
• Define political institution and explain why institutions are central to modern government
• Describe the comparative approach to political science
• Understand which countries can be compared
• Outline the benefits of a comparative approach
What are political institutions?
• Last week we discussed authority
• A form of rule that is accepted by the ruled
• We learned that authority is never completely secure
• So securing authority is a key challenge for government
• Institutions
• Negative connotations (e.g. mental asylum, prison, routines, intimidation from authority
figures, differences between power
• Deinstitutionalisation (1970s): process of shutting down mental asylums to prevent
patients become institutionalised
• Looked at people in a way that was not necessarily correct (e.g. insane when not insane)
• Authority
• Authority is never absolute
• There is always an individual or group to challenge it
• Authority must be continually secured
Personal Authority
• Prior to the modern state, authority was usually concentrated in an individual ruler
• In autocratic regimes this is still the case
• Prevalent before the rise of modern states
• The individual is the government, therefore the entire authority is captured within the
individual, dying when they die
• Problems
• Centralised power
• Personal perspectives rather than community perspectives
• Incompetence
• E.g. 'Great Leap Forward' (30 million starvation deaths)
• Death of a ruler is the death of authority, often causing a civil war
• Instability
• The individual carries the entire weight of the state
What is the alternative to personal authority?
• The modern state tries to entrench its authority via institutions
• Enduring government arrangements guided by rules and norms
• E.g. Constitutions, parliaments, bureaucracies, armies, etc.
• Different from personal authority because personal authority has very few rules and norms
due to personal decision making (arbitrariness)
• Functions of institutions
• Guides in which government branches are responsible for what
• Guides in how governing is supposed to happen
• Stops the government from acting arbitrarily
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Document Summary
Last week we discussed authority: a form of rule that is accepted by the ruled, we learned that authority is never completely secure. So securing authority is a key challenge for government. Institutions: negative connotations (e. g. mental asylum, prison, routines, intimidation from authority figures, differences between power, deinstitutionalisation (1970s): process of shutting down mental asylums to prevent patients become institutionalised. Looked at people in a way that was not necessarily correct (e. g. insane when not insane: authority, authority is never absolute, there is always an individual or group to challenge it, authority must be continually secured. "great leap forward" (30 million starvation deaths: death of a ruler is the death of authority, often causing a civil war, the individual carries the entire weight of the state. What is the alternative to personal authority: the modern state tries to entrench its authority via institutions, enduring government arrangements guided by rules and norms, e. g.
