Politics : the basics : 4th ed.

POLITICS

THE BASICS

4TH EDITION

This highly successful introduction to the world of politics has been fully

revised and updated in collaboration with a new co-author, Nigel Jackson of

the University of Plymouth. The new edition builds on the reputation for

clarity and comprehensive coverage of the previous editions. It explores the

varieties of political systems, the main political movements and key issues at

the beginning of the twenty-first century.

New to the fourth edition:

• comparison of quantitative and qualitative methods

• more international examples

• greater discussion of non-Western concepts of politics

• the problem of voter apathy and lack of trust in politicians

• more discussion of the ‘war on terrorism’

• extended analysis of the role of the Internet in politics including blogs,

search engine censorship and e-democracy

• analysis of further key concepts such as genocide and policy networks

• more links to web pages including case studies, further questions to

explore and additional learning activities.

Accessible in style and topical in content, this book assumes no prior know￾ledge of politics. These features make it ideal reading for general readers as

well as for those who are just beginning to study politics at undergraduate

level.

Stephen D. Tansey has taught Politics at the universities of Ife (Nigeria),

Exeter and Bournemouth, for the Open University and the WEA. He is the

author of Business, Information Technology and Society (also published by

Routledge).

Nigel Jackson has worked as a parliamentary agent for a UK political party,

for an MP and as a parliamentary lobbyist. Teaching at the University of

Plymouth, his research interests are in political communication and political

marketing, especially online.

Also available from Routledge

THE ROUTLEDGE DICTIONARY OF POLITICS

DAVID ROBERTSON

FIFTY MAJOR POLITICAL THINKERS

(SECOND EDITION)

IAN ADAMS AND R.W. DYSON

FIFTY KEY FIGURES IN TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITISH POLITICS

KEITH LAYBOURN

FIFTY KEY THINKERS IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

MARTIN GRIFFITHS

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE KEY CONCEPTS

MARTIN GRIFFITHS AND TERRY O’CALLAGHAN

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO FASCISM AND THE FAR RIGHT

PETER DAVIES AND DEREK LYNCH

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: THE BASICS

PETER SUTCH AND JUANITA ELIAS

POLITICS

THE BASICS

4TH EDITION

stephen d. tansey and nigel jackson

First edition published 1995

Second edition published 2000

Third edition published 2004

Fourth edition, 2008

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa

© 1995, 2000, 2004 Stephen D. Tansey; 2008 Stephen D. Tansey and Nigel

Jackson

We, Stephen Douglas Tansey and Nigel Jackson, hereby assert and give notice

to our right under section 77 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988, to

be identified as the authors of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now

known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any

information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from

the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Tansey, Stephen D., 1942–

Politics : the basics / Stephen D. Tansey and Nigel Jackson. — 4th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Political science. I. Jackson, Nigel A. II. Title.

JA66.T35 2008

320—dc22 2007038803

ISBN 10: 0–415–42243–4 (hbk)

ISBN 10: 0–415–42244–2 (pbk)

ISBN 10: 0–203–92919–5 (ebk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–415–42243–7 (hbk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–415–42244–4 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 978–0–203–92919–3 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”

ISBN 0-203-92919-5 Master e-book ISBN

TO THE NEXT GENERATION –

ESPECIALLY ELIOT, TOBY,

FREYA AND JAKE

CONTENTS

List of illustrations xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgements xix

1 Politics 1

This chapter . . . 1

Politics in everyday life 1

What is politics? 3

Approaches to the study of politics 7

Traditional scholarship 9

Social science and politics 12

Schools of political science 15

Theories, models, paradigms 18

Radical and postmodernist criticism 19

Conclusion 23

Recommended reading 23

Websites 24

2 Systems 26

This chapter . . . 26

States and societies 26

Politics without the state: tribal societies 27

Feudalism 31

States without nations: kingdoms 33

States without nations: empires 36

Nations and states 38

The nation state and sovereignty 39

Politics between states 40

Politics beyond the state: international institutions 41

Multinational enterprises and ‘globalisation’ 42

Politics as a universal activity 47

Recommended reading 48

Websites 48

3 Concepts 50

This chapter . . . 50

Human nature and politics 50

Is the state necessary? 52

Why should i obey the state? 54

The nature of authority 56

What is justice? 57

Individualism versus collectivism 60

Rights: natural, human, legal 61

Equality 62

Positive and negative freedom 64

Analysing political concepts 65

Recommended reading 67

Websites 68

4 Ideologies 69

This chapter . . . 69

Ideology 69

‘Right’ versus ‘left’ 71

The old right: monarchism 72

The radical right: Nazism and fascism 74

Marxism 76

Leninism and Stalinism 77

Other Marxisms 79

Radicalism 81

Radical theism – Catholic, Protestant and Islamic 81

Ecology as political radicalism 84

Feminism as political radicalism 86

Liberalism 89

Conservatism 92

Thatcherism and neo-conservatism 94

Christian democracy 95

Socialism and social democracy 97

Communitarianism and the ‘third way’ 99

Recommended reading 101

Websites 102

viii CONTENTS

5 Processes 103

This chapter . . . 103

Political identity 103

Political socialisation and political culture 104

Localism, nationalism, religion and ethnicity 107

Racial and ethnic conflict 110

Dominance, assimilation and social pluralism 112

Elites, classes and political pluralism 114

Political change 117

Coups d’état and revolutions 120

Terror and terrorism 121

Class conflict in the twenty-first century 123

Post-industrial politics: the information polity? 125

‘North’ versus ‘South’? 129

Conclusion 133

Recommended reading 134

Websites 134

6 States 136

This chapter . . . 136

Types of state 136

Democracy, the welfare state and the market 139

Forms of representative democracy 142

Military autocracy 146

Civil autocracy 148

Totalitarian governments 150

Nazi government 151

Soviet government 152

Islamic government – breaking the mould? 153

Multi-level government 155

European political institutions 159

Local government 164

Conclusion 168

Recommended reading 168

Websites 169

7 Democracy 170

This chapter . . . 170

How can government be ‘democratic’? 170

Participation and direct democracy 171

Choosing rulers 173

Electoral systems 173

The executive 175

CONTENTS ix

The legislature 177

The judiciary 179

Constitutions and constitutionalism 181

Rights and constitutions 182

Pluralist policy making 185

Corporatism 186

Centralisation 187

Political communication 189

Political parties 191

‘Spin’ and political marketing 193

The permanent campaign 194

Interest groups 195

The mass media 197

The Internet 202

Democracy and communication 204

Recommended reading 204

Websites 206

8 Policies 209

This chapter . . . 209

Public policy problems and solutions 209

The choice of social decision-making mechanisms 210

The case for the market 212

Problems of market decision making 213

Voluntary organisation 215

Rational policy making: bureaucracy 217

Problems with ‘rational’ policy making 220

Incremental decision making 222

The policy process 224

Implementing public policy 225

Managing local public policy 228

Multi-level governance 229

Evaluating public policy 231

Monitoring performance in public policy 232

Evaluating policy outcomes: the distribution of wealth and income 234

The political policy-making process 236

A crisis in democratic politics? 237

Taking political action 238

Recommended reading 239

Websites 240

Appendix: sources on politics 241

References 249

Index 267

x CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURES

4.1 Classifying ideologies 73

8.1 Levels of inter-organisational bargaining 227

8.2 Managing local public service provision 229

BOXES

1.1 Definitions of ‘politics’ and ‘power’ 4

1.2 Assessing the use of methodology in politics 23

2.1 Definition of ‘state’ 27

2.2 Definitions of globalisation 46

2.3 Globalisation – challenges to the nation state 46

3.1 Definitions of anarchism 52

3.2 Justice 59

3.3 Concepts of equality: summary 63

3.4 Definitions of freedom 64

4.1 Ideology as a political concept 71

5.1 Definitions of political socialisation 105

5.2 Political culture 105

5.3 Propositions from pluralist, elite and Marxist models of power 116

5.4 North v South: a major fault line in international relations? 132

5.5 Major political divisions 133

6.1 Republican, autocratic and totalitarian states 137

6.2 Capitalism 140

6.3 The welfare state 141

6.4 Forms of representative democracy 142

6.5 The principle of subsidiarity 157

6.6 Relations between levels of government 158

7.1 Political parties 191

7.2 Pressure or interest groups 195

8.1 Choice of social decision-making mechanism 211

8.2 Weber’s characteristics of bureaucracy 218

8.3 A rational–comprehensive model of decision making 219

8.4 Why organisations are not always rational 220

8.5 Hogwood and Gunn’s model of the policy process 224

8.6 Ten principles for reinventing government 230

8.7 The 3 ‘E’s: efficiency; economy; effectiveness 232

TABLES

1.1 Major contemporary approaches to politics 10

2.1 Multinationals and countries compared 43

4.1 Attitudes to gender differences 88

5.1(a) Typical socialisation research findings: attitudes to president 106

5.1(b) Typical socialisation research findings: most popularly

used sources of information about foreign people 106

5.2 Typical research findings: political culture 107

5.3 Summary: critics of pluralism 117

5.4 From public administration to information polity 129

6.1 The trend to democracy, 1974–2000 139

6.2 Parliamentary versus presidential systems 143

7.1 Political marketing and New Labour 194

8.1 Marketable wealth in Britain 234

8.2 World population below international poverty line (2001) 235

xii ILLUSTRATIONS

PREFACE

WHO THE BOOK IS FOR – AND WHAT IT IS ABOUT

This book is designed as a basic introduction to twenty-first century

politics. We do not claim to be able to predict with certainty the

political shape of the new century. However, it is already clear that

many of the old perspectives of superpower rivalry and class and

ideological warfare which dominated the era of the Cold War seem to

be of reduced relevance. Issues such as ecology, new technology,

Islam, terrorism, feminism and the role of what used to be described

as the Third World (referred to as ‘the South’ in this book) are likely

to move to centre stage. An introduction to politics that takes a

parochial single-country approach no longer seems sensible in an era

of increased international interdependence.

The readers we have in mind are without a systematic knowledge

of, or rigid attitudes towards, politics. This book is intended both to

enable such readers to make up their minds about politics and to

understand more about the academic discipline of politics (or, as it is

more grandly described in the United States, ‘political science’). In

particular, pre-university students, whether or not they have studied

politics at school, have found this book a useful indication of the

ground covered by university courses. The book has also been found

useful for undergraduates beginning courses in politics. It has also

formed the basis of short subsidiary courses in politics at under￾graduate, postgraduate and extra-mural level. However, we hope that

open-minded and intelligent older and younger readers alike will also

find much of interest in this approach. Nor would we have any

objection to the occasional practising politician quarrying something

useful from the work!

We have not taken the view that a ‘social scientific’ approach

requires the assumption of an attitude of detachment from the

politics of the day. But neither have we tried to sell a short-term

political programme. The approach here is to search for long-term

principles that can help guide political actions. ‘Politics’ has been

taken to mean the essential human activity of deciding how to live

together in communities. This activity has been put in a long-term

and wide geographical context. Frequent reference has been made to

both Europe as a whole and the United States as well as to the United

Kingdom. The focus is on the relatively prosperous industrialised

countries of the ‘West’, but this cannot be detached from those of the

rest of the world. In considering such an ambitious agenda we have

drawn extensively on the work of many academics, whose ideas have

in many cases already been borrowed (often in caricatured form) by

politicians.

In a book designed to help readers make up their own minds about

politics, no attempt has been made to hide the authors’ liberal and

socially progressive point of view. This has inevitably been reflected

in such matters as the choice of topics for discussion. But it is hoped to

give a fair representation of all other major points of view and to give

an indication of where the reader can find accessible versions of

alternative perspectives.

HOW THE BOOK IS ORGANISED

The book begins with a discussion of the nature of politics and the

variety of academic approaches to its understanding. Chapter 2

illustrates the variety of contexts in which political activity takes

place. Chapters 3 and 4 then survey competing ideas about the aims

of that political activity.

The final four chapters of the book consider in more detail what

and how political decisions are reached. Chapter 5 covers what kinds

of decisions are made and how political systems change. Chapter 6

reviews the variety of different states. Chapter 7 focuses on how

modern democracies make their decisions. Finally, considering more

specifically some particular areas of public policy making, the

xiv PREFACE