3. Governing Society: We Know Who You Are

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3. Governing SocietyWe Know Who You Are
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Reflection

• What is meant by We know who you are?

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Controlling the Behavior of Others

• One of the key differences between realists and
  idealists is the way they view human nature.

• Idealists
• Tend to believe that humans are basically good
  and care for others.
• Consequently, governments and their leaders
  should be judged by these ideals.

• Realists
• Tend to believe that human beings care only about
  maximizing their own self-interests.
• They expect no more from their leaders.

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Controlling the Behavior of Others

• The study of how governments need to control
  individuals is a realist approach.
• When examining politics, this perspective asks
• Who benefits?
• How do they benefit?
• The answers to these two questions will usually
  provide a solid first step toward unraveling the
  political puzzle.
• Often, the best line is Show me the power.

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Controlling the Behavior of Others

• It can be argued that all leaders, regardless of
  the types of governments they head, try to
  maximize their self-interests.
• What individual benefits might leaders pursue?
• Power
• Wealth
• Prestige
• The goals might be selfish or altruistic, but the
  concept of leadership benefits is a powerful
  explanatory tool.

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Reflection

• Which is the most important to you? Explain why.
• POWER
• MONEY
• PRESTIGE

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Leadership Benefits

• The greater the benefits to be gained from the
  leadership position,
• the more willing people are to take risks to
  achieve the position
• and the greater the lengths to which the leader
  will go to hold on to it.

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The Panopticon

• One of the fundamental mechanisms leaders use to
  control large populations is based on the concept
  of the panopticon.
• The concept is based on an eighteenth-century
  prison design by Jeremy Bentham.
• The prisoners could be watched at any time, but
  they never know when they are being watched.

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Plan of the Panopticon 1843 (originally 1791) The
Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 4, 17273.
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The Panopticon

• The only way for the prisoners to avoid
  punishment was to police their own actions and
  serve as their own guards.
• Michel Foucault noted that the panoptic control
  of a few guards over hundreds of prisoners is
  similar to how governments control large
  populations.

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The Panopticon

• Think of the way traffic laws are enforced.
• The vast majority of times there are no police to
  be seen.
• However, there always could be a police officer
  around any bend in the road.
• Self-policing allows a few hundred police
  officers to control thousands of drivers.
• Leaders use this same concept to prevent revolt
  and maintain control.

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Collective Action, Revolution, and the Use of
Force

• Government is essentially an institutionalized
  mechanism for collective action.
• Revolutions are collective actions with the aim
  of tearing down and replacing the current
  government.

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Collective Action, Revolution, and the Use of
Force

• Those at the top of existing social hierarchies
  are driven by self-interest to oppose actively
  any collective effort to overthrow the system.
• They employ a variety of techniques to prevent
  revolutionary groups from forming.

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Atomization

• When people are isolated they are kept from
  forming a group that could threaten a leaders
  hold on power.
• At the most extreme, a leader would want to
  prevent anyone from forming any kind of personal
  bond with another.
• To accomplish this, leaders use two important
  mechanisms
• Peer policing
• Preference falsification

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Atomization Peer Policing

• Peer policing is having people police each other.
• Leaders need to encourage citizens to engage in
  peer policing against potential revolutionaries.
• Leaders might make it a crime to not report
  someone elses efforts to form a revolutionary
  group.
• This works particularly well if people believe
  that government agents will test individuals
  willingness to turn in others.

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Atomization Peer Policing

• Governments and their leaders can handle
  individual isolated revolutionary actions, but
  mass action may overwhelm a governments policing
  and enforcement mechanisms.
• Peer policing happens in democracies as well as
  in totalitarian states.
• Can you think of examples of peer policing?

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Atomization Preference Falsification

• Preference falsification is hiding the way you
  truly feel while publicly expressing what those
  in power want to hear from you.
• As long as peoples true feelings are hidden, how
  can potential revolutionaries even know if there
  are others who share their view?

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Limits on Forceful Control

• The level of force leaders must use to maintain
  control is related to the level of
  dissatisfaction.
• When dissatisfaction is low, less force is
  necessary.
• When dissatisfaction with unresolved problems
  becomes high enough, desperation may overcome
  fear, and force may no longer be enough.
• When pushed too far, people will stand up to a
  bully.

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Legitimacy and Government Control

• Instead of relying on force, threats, and
  punishments, leaders can maintain control by
  pursuing legitimacy.
• Legitimacy is the voluntary acceptance of
  government.
• Pursuing a path of legitimacy can be an expensive
  long-term proposition.
• It is generally far cheaper in the short term to
  use force.

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Legitimacy and Government Control

• Governments can achieve or lose legitimacy in
  many ways
• By staying in power a long time
• By getting the blessing of a legitimate past
  leader
• By convincing people that God sent the leaders to
  rule
• By winning popular elections
• Electoral democracies institutionalize revolt by
  giving citizens the power to keep or replace the
  government.

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Legitimacy and Conflict within Groups

• After World War I, researchers believed that
  conflict was something horrible and that conflict
  should be eradicated.
• Georg Simmel and later Lewis Coser pointed out
  that the complete elimination of conflicts could
  be equally bad, because conflict serves
  constructive functions.

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Legitimacy and Conflict within Groups

• When a group is engaged in a conflict with
  another group, self-identification with the group
  increases and support for the leadership
  increases.
• Intragroup conflict (conflict within the group)
  can serve as a safety valve, reducing tensions
  caused by frustration.

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Crosscutting Cleavages

• If there are a variety of conflicts, divisions
  over them do not always coincide.
• People who disagree on one issue may agree on
  others.
• This prevents society from dividing sharply over
  a single issue.
• People will be less hostile toward those they
  disagree with on one issue if they agree on other
  issues.

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Conflict as a Source of Legitimacy

• Such conflict facilitates the resolution of the
  underlying cause of disagreement resolving small
  issues can keep them from growing into large
  ones.
• Such conflict also provides a foundation for
  developing compromises.

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Conflict as a Source of Legitimacy

• Resolving conflict within the group enhances the
  publics willingness to accept the group and its
  structures voluntarily.
• This enhances the legitimacy of the group and its
  leaders.