GOV 312L Study Guide - Midterm Guide: School, Extortion, Erectile Dysfunction
Document Summary
Politics: the use of authority to allocate scarce resources/ a means of coordinating behavior. Authority: the capacity to direct social behavior or the actions of others. Often relies on coercion (capacity to impose costs if directive not followed. Presence of authority also reflects on legitimacy (target of directive recognizes right of person or organization to do so, even if they disagree with command) Not all groups that can coerce are legitimate. Allocation of scarce resources: implies some degree of competition or social conflict over that allocation. Give an example of how the use of coercion by a legitimate authority helps to establish political order. Political order is formed from stable patterns or regularities of social behavior induced by authority relationships and/or coercion. Holder of authority has legitimacy but not all groups that coerce are legitimate (school yard bully) Violence (deployment or threat of coercion) is often necessary for people to be able to follow directives.
