Introduction To Political Science Book Word-170616101719 - 2

Introduction to
Political Science
© 2017 Rey Ty
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Introduction to Political Science
© 2017 Rey Ty
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Introduction to Political Science
© 2017 R. Ty
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All reproductions
are strictly prohibited.
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Table of Contents
Some Major Publications Cited ..................................................................................................................... 7

General Overview ......................................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 1: What is Political Science: Historical Background, Definitions, Nature, and Scope .................... 10
Chapter 2: Main Approaches to the Study of Political Science: Traditional and Modern Approaches....... 16
Assignment after Lecture 2 ......................................................................................................................... 21
Chapter 3: Institutional Approach to Political Science ................................................................................ 22
Chapter 4: Basic Political Values: Political Behaviour, Liberty, Equality, Justice, and Rights ....................... 26
Chapter 5: Nationalism and Nation State ................................................................................................... 31
Chapter 6: The State and Civil Society ........................................................................................................ 33
Chapter 7: The Nature, Purpose, and Functions of a Modern State........................................................... 35
Chapter 8: Types of Power, Authority, Legitimacy, and Sovereignty ........................................................... 39
Chapter 9: Political Obligation and Resistance (Civil Disobedience and Revolution) ................................. 43
Chapter 10: Constitutionalism: Political and Social Change: Reforms, Revolutions, and Military Coups .. 45
Chapter 11: Contemporary Issues and Debates in Political Science ........................................................... 52
Chapter 12: Forms of Government ............................................................................................................. 56
Anarchy ................................................................................................................................................... 57
Aristocracy............................................................................................................................................... 57
Authoritrianism ....................................................................................................................................... 57
Autocracy ................................................................................................................................................ 57
Communism ............................................................................................................................................ 57
Confederation ......................................................................................................................................... 57
Constitutional monarchy......................................................................................................................... 57
Democracy .............................................................................................................................................. 57
Democratization ...................................................................................................................................... 58
Dictatorship ............................................................................................................................................. 58
Power structure or distribution of authority .......................................................................................... 59
Authoritarian state .................................................................................................................................. 59
Democracy: Rule by the People .............................................................................................................. 59
Monarchy: Rule by One........................................................................................................................... 60
Rule by a Few .......................................................................................................................................... 60
Chapter 13: Democracy, Political Preference, and Voting Behaviour ......................................................... 61
Chapter 14: Prerequisites and Measuring of Democracy ........................................................................... 65
Chapter 15: Social, Cultural, and Economic Dimensions of Democracy ..................................................... 69
Assignment after Lecture 15 ....................................................................................................................... 70
Chapter 16: Political Ideologies: Caliphates, Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism ............................... 71
Chapter 17: Mapping of Political Preferences............................................................................................. 75
Chapter 18: Political Philosophies: Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Muslim Philosophies ...................... 77
Assignment after Lecture 18 ....................................................................................................................... 79
Chapter 19: Theories of Comparative Politics: Political Systems of Developing & Developed Countries .. 80
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Chapter 20: Public Policy Analysis ............................................................................................................... 83
Chapter 21: Public Administration .............................................................................................................. 88
Chapter 22: Local Government Systems ..................................................................................................... 89
Chapter 23: Political and Economic Development ...................................................................................... 92
Chapter 24: Comparative Politics of Ethnic Conflict ................................................................................... 97
Chapter 25: Role of Religion in National and International Politics ............................................................ 98
Chapter 26: Islamic Political System.......................................................................................................... 102
Chapter 27: Foreign Policy Analysis .......................................................................................................... 130
Chapter 28: Good Governance: Issues and Challenges ............................................................................ 133
Chapter 29: Globalization and Regional Integration ................................................................................. 134
Chapter 30: International Politics: Role of Developed, Developing, and Muslim Countries .................... 135
Assignment after Lecture 30 ..................................................................................................................... 136
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Some Major Publications Cited
1. Terrence Ball and Richard Dagger. (2010). Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal.
New York: Pearson Longman.
2. James N. Danziger. (2011). Understanding the Political World. Boston: Longman.
3. Janda, K., Berry, J. M., Goldman, J., Schildkraut, D. J., & Hula, K. W. (2015). The challenge
of democracy. MI: Cengage Learning.
4. Patterson, T. E. American democracy, 11thed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
5. Welch, Gruhl, Comer, &Rigdon. (2009). American Government. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth
Publishing.
6. Wilson, J. Q. American Government. Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
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General Overview
1. Nature and Scope
2. Traditional and Modern Approaches
3. Institutional Approach
4. Political Values
5. Nationalism and Nation State
6. State and Civil Society
7. Modern State
8. Power
9. Political Obligation and Resistance
10. Constitutionalism
11. Contemporary Issues and Debates
12. Forms of Government
13. Democracy, Political Preferences, and Voting Behaviour
14. Prerequisites and Measurement of Democracy
15. Dimensions of Democracy
16. Political Ideologies
17. Mapping Political Preferences
18. Political Philosophies
19. Comparative Politics
20. Public Policy
21. Public Administration
22. Local Government
23. Political and Economic Development
24. Ethnic Conflict
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25. Religion in Politics
26. Islamic Political System
27. Foreign Policy Analysis
28. Good Governance
29. Globalization and Regional Integration
30. International Politics: Developed, Developing, and Muslim Countries
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Chapter 1: What is Political Science: Historical Background,
Definitions, Nature, and Scope
• Why Study Politics?
• Affect our daily lives
• Birth certificates, national identification cards, passports, death certificates
• What we can buy, how much
• Where we can live, make business, pay taxes
• Schools, roads, buses
• Relations with other countries
• Develop Political Thinking among Informed Citizens for Functioning Democracies
• Nature and Definition of Political Science
• Politics
• Greek word polis = city
• Polis: root word of police, policy, politics, political, -polis (Indianapolis,

Acropolis…)
• Aristotle
• City = state
• Participation in the affairs of the state
• Study different countries
• Conflict and resolution of conflict
• Process through which conflicts are settled in a society
• Process through which government decisions are made
• Authoritative allocation of resources
• Science
• Old French “science:” knowledge, learning, application
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• Latin word “scientia:” knowledge, expertness
• Systematic study
• Political Science
• Part of Social Sciences. Other social sciences that affect the study of politics
• Anthropology
• Economics
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Others
• Systematic study of politics
• Historical Background of Political Science
• First Century B.C.
• Plato’s dialogues: justice, good government, what is good for humanity
• Aristotle: scientific observation and description of types of government
• Later
• 17th Century AD: Thomas Hobbes: elements of government
• 19th Century: Karl Marx and Max Weber: sociological approach
• Political History
• Country Level
• International Level
• Global Level
• Political Systems
• City-states of Ancient Greece
• Monarchy and Feudalism
• Feudalism
• Dictatorship
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• Democracy
• Theocracy
• Parliament
• Presidential System
• Semi-Presidential System
• Today
• Behavioralism
• Study political campaigns; influence votes
• Policy choices
• Quantitative methods and statistics to study president, Congress,

voting behavior
• Multiple Interpretations
• Critical Theory
• Feminism
• Postmodernism
• Scope and Disciplines of Political Science
• Political Analysis: Nation, State, Government, Sovereignty, Independence...
• Political Philosophy
• Political Science
• International Studies, Politics, Relations
• Comparative Government and Politics
• Public Administration
• Bureaucracy
• Adhocracy
• Public Policy
• Public Interest
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• National Policy
• Foreign Policy
• Political Psychology
• What Do Political Scientists Do?

Professor
Teacher
Curriculum developer
Journal Editor
Political Commentator
• Continuity
• Change
• CRITICAL THINKING
• 1) Why is the study of politics important?
• 2) What are the problems with politics that you see in your daily life?
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Test Questions for Chapter I: Introduction
The word “politics” comes from the Greek word “polis” which means
A) The city-state
B) Struggle for power
C) Running the affairs of government
D) Controlling the national territory
E) The search for a ruler
ANSWER: A
The word “science” comes from the Old French word which means
A) Knowledge, learning, and application
B) Modernity
C) Experiments
D) Exact measurements
E) All of the above
ANSWER: A
Related to politics:
A) All the answers are correct
B) The Greek word “polis” used during the ancient times
C) Aristotle
D) City-state
E) Affairs of the state
ANSWER: A
Elements of the history of political science

B) City-state of ancient Greece
C) Monarchy
D) Dictatorship
E) Democracy
ANSWER: A
Political science deals with

B) Political philosophy
C) International relations
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D) Comparative politics
E) Public administration
ANSWER: A
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Chapter 2: Main Approaches to the Study of Political Science:
Traditional and Modern Approaches
Traditional Modern Postmodern

Approaches
• Traditional Approaches
• Philosophy: Leo Strauss on Plato, Aristotle, etc.
• Ancient
• Medieval
• Modern
• Law: Cicero, Jean Bodin, Thomas Hobbes, John Austin, Jeremy Bentham
• National Law
• Regional Law
• International Law
• Institutions: Harold Laski
• History: Niccolo Machiavelli
• Local
• National
• Regional: Europe, East Asia, etc.
• International
• Global
• Modern Approaches
• Classical Marxism
• Behaviouralism: David Easton
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• Not law
• Not rules
• Behaviour of individuals and groups
• Scientific Methods and Techniques, Systematization
• Quantification
• Generalizations, Regularities
• Verification
• Techniques
• Empirical
• Postbehavioralism
• Reemergence of Political Philosophy
• Easton who was a major proponent of behaviouralism called for not just
measuring political behaviour only but also supporting post-behaviouralism to solve
political problems
• Postmodern Approaches
• Critical Theory
• Constructivist Theory
• Feminist Theory
• Compare and Contrast
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative
• Observation vs. Norms
• Facts vs. Values
• 1) Which general approach do you personally prefer: tradition, modern, or post-

behavioral? Why?
• 2) Which specific approach do you personally prefer? Why?
• 3) Which general approach does not appeal to you at all? Why?
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• 4) Which specific approach does not appeal to you at all? Why?
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Test Question: for Chapter II: Traditional and Modern Approaches
Who is a major advocate of behaviouralism?

A) David Easton
B) John Austin
C) Jean Bodin
D) Leo Strauss
E) Jeremy Bentham
ANSWER: A
The following is a traditional approach

A) Legal approach
B) Behavioural approach
C) Modern approach
D) Post-Behavioural approach
E) None of the above
ANSWER: A
The following is not a traditional approach

A) Modern approach
B) Historical approach
C) Institutional approach
D) Legal approach
E) Philosophical approach
ANSWER: A
The oldest approach to the study of politics is the

A) Traditional approach
B) Behavioural approach
C) Post-behavioural approach
D) Modern approach
E) Institutional approach
ANSWER: A
An advocate of institutional approach is

A) Harold Laski
B) Thomas Hobbes
C) Cicero
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D) Leo Strauss
E) Machiavelli
ANSWER: A
A major advocate of both behavioralism and post-behaviorlaism is

A) David Easton
B) Jeremy Bentham
C) John Austin
D) Jean Bodin
E) Leo Strauss
ANSWER: A
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Assignment after Lecture 2
Compare and contrast the traditional approach and the modern approach to the study of
political science.
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Chapter 3: Institutional Approach to Political Science
Traditional Approaches
Philosophical Approach
Historical Approach
*Institutional Approach
Legal Approach
Characteristics of Traditional Approaches
Idealistic
Normative
Institutional Approach
Aristotle
Formal aspects
Structures
Legislature
Executive
Judiciary
Political Parties
Interest groups
Historical Institutionalism
Key Features
Charles Tilly
Comparative approach to study organizations and institutions
Case studies
Influenced by political history, political philosophy, etc.
Old Institutionalism
Normative, prescriptive (Weber: modern states need professional bureaucracy)
Institutions as law or formal rules of behaviour
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The state as the only source of power
1950s: Structural-Functionalism
Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture: see variability of
modernization
New Institutionalism (Historical Institutionalism)
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies
Barrington Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
ThedaSkocpol, States and Social Revolution: France, Russia, & China
“Institutions” can mean
Formal bureaucracy
Ideology
Informal Custom
James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: social groups behave and can have power
Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak State
HI does not prescribe
Different paths to participation
Reform, Revolution, etc.
Views of History
Enlightened philosophes, empiricists, and positivists view history as linear: happy
ending
New Institutionalists do not view history as linear
“Path dependence:”
History matters: outcomes vary
Past event causes later circumstances and events
Choices at critical juncture affect outcomes
Some Historical Institutionalists believe in rational choice
Other Historical Institutionalistsbelive in randomness and accidents affecting
outcomes
• 1) Use the institutional approach to explain the politics of where you live.
• 2) What are the strengths and weaknesses of the institutional approach?
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Test Questions for Chapter 3: Institutional Approaches
The institutional approach to political science is

A) A traditional approach
B) A modern approach
C) A philosophical approach
D) A legal approach
E) All of the above
ANSWER: A
The institutional approach to political science deals with

B) Formal aspects
C) Legislative structure
D) Executive structure
E) Political parties
ANSWER: A
Historical institutionalism
B) Comparative approach to studying organizations and institutions
C) Influenced by political history
D) Influenced by political philosophy
E) Charles Tilly is a major proponent
ANSWER: A
Old institutionalism
B) Normative and prescriptive
C) Institutions are seen as laws and rules
D) The state is the only source of power
E) Structural-Functionalism
ANSWER: A
New institutionalism
B) Different paths to participation
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C) Social groups can have power
D) Institutions can mean ideology
E) Institutions can mean informal custom
ANSWER: A
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Chapter 4: Basic Political Values: Political Behaviour, Liberty, Equality,
Justice, and Rights
Reference: Janda, Berry, Goldman, Schildkraut. (2015).The Challenge of Democracy: American

Government in a Global World. Wadsworth. Ch. 1
Globalization of Government and Politics

Politics in a Changing World
Globalization of Countries
Clash of values
Purpose of Government
Maintain order
Promote equality
Provide goods
Concepts of Freedom (Liberty), Equality, Justice, and Rights

Freedom
Four Freedoms (Franklin Roosevelt)
Freedom from want
Freedom from fear
Freedom of religion
Freedom of speech
• Civil Liberties
• Individual freedoms
• Constraints on government
• Privacy, no harm
• Equality
• identical condition of people in society
• equality before the law
• Justice
• fairness
• Aristotle: treat equally equally and unequally unequally in
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proportion to their inequality
• liberation from exploitation
• Rights
• what are dues to someone
• moral rights
• legal rights
• international rights
• human rights
Two Dilemmas of Government

Original Dilemma: Freedom vs. Order
Modern Dilemma: Freedom vs. Equality
Ideology and Government

Totalitarianism: total government control
Socialism: government control of basic industries
Capitalism: private ownership
Anarchism: against government
Liberals and Conservatives: The Narrow Middle
Liberals: prefer government role in social programs, education, public transport, wildlife
protection
Conservatives: small government in social programs and big government in security (police,
military)
The Purpose of Government

Liberals vs. Conservatives: The New Differences
Two-Dimensional classification of ideologies
Conservatives prefer order (to freedom) and freedom (to equality)

Liberals prefer freedom (to order) and equality (to freedom)
Libertarians: prefer freedom above all
Communitarians: prefer equality or order (and willing to give up freedom)
• 1) For you personally, what is the most important political value: order, freedom,
equality, justice, or rights? Why?
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• 2) For you personally, what is the least important political value: order, freedom,
equality, justice, or rights? Why?
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Test Questions for Chapter 4: Basic Political Values–Political Behaviour, Liberty, Equality,
Justice, and Rights
Services provided to everyone, such as education, highways, and public sewerage system is
called
A) Public goods
B) Globalization
C) Charity
D) Dictatorship
E) Democracy
ANSWER: A
The political ideology that rejects all government interference in society, except to protect life
and property
A) Libertarianism
B) Liberalism
C) Socialism
D) Totalitarianism
E) Democracy
ANSWER: A
Equal pay for equal work for both women and men is an example of
A) Government promotion of equality over freedom
B) Government promotion of freedom over equality
C) Government promotion of equality over order
D) Government promotion of order over freedom
E) Government promotion of order over anarchy
ANSWER: A
The following statement is not true

A) Communitarians value freedom over liberty
B) Libertarians value freedom above all other values
C) Liberals value equality over order
D) Conservatives value freedom over equality
E) Libertarians value equality over freedom over order
ANSWER: A
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In general, a consistent set of values and beliefs about the proper purpose and scope of
government
A) Political ideology
B) Anarchism
C) Monarchy
D) Dictatorship
E) Democracy
ANSWER: A
Today’s liberals
A) See a positive role for government to empower the disadvantaged
B) Oppose government intervention in the economy
C) Support total government control of politics
D) Support complete free enterprise without any government regulation
E) Do not care about education, health care, and other social services
ANSWER: A
An example of a government regulation to enforce equality

A) A court decision to enforce equal pay for equal work for women and men
B) A law that restricts the freedom of speech
C) A law that outlaws images of women not wearing veils in the Internet
D) A law that ensures the freedom of speech
E) A court decision that prohibits equal pay for equal work for women and men
ANSWER: A
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Chapter 5: Nationalism and Nation State
• Nation
• People with a share territory, history, experience, languages, economic life,

psychological make-up, culture, and character, etc.
• Broadest form of human community under capitalism
• Government
• Protects the peace
• Carries out policies
• State
• Different meanings
• Different theories
• Importance of John Locke’s theory
• The Modern State
• Weber:
• Bureaucracy: organize collective action
• Impersonality: not identified with an individual only (but there are

personality cults and dictators)
• Sovereignty: police and control activities within a country
• Nationalism
• A principle of ideology and politics expressed in national

isolation
• Mistrust of other nations
• Enmity among nations
• Great Power chauvinism
• Local nationalism
• National Liberation Movements
• historically necessary development of people in struggle,
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with democracy content, to work for economic and political independence
• 1) Explain why nationalism is important or not.
• 2) What are the limitations of the concept of nation state?
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Chapter 6: The State and Civil Society
Some authors:
Aristotle: Beasts and Gods live outside the state; humans lie in polis = state = civil society
Adam Smith: Western society was property-owning “civilized” civil society vs. other
societies (“Asiatic modes” of Oriental despotism)
Social Contractarians: state of nature (natural society) vs. civil society (civil government
or state); civil society is rational
Thomas Hobbes: state of nature vs. civil society
Jean-Jacques Rousseau: born free in state of nature vs. give up natural freedom
in civil society
John Locke: avoid inconveniences
Hegel:
The state is rational, not civil society.
Civil society is between the individuals and the state.
Young Karl Marx
Civil society (private domain) vs. State (public domain)
Scientific Karl Marx
Civil society renamed economic structure of society
Go beyond state vs. society
Labor vs. Capital
Antonio Gramsci
State’s hegemony
Civil society’s counter-hegemony
Louis Althusser
Ideological state apparatus
Repressive state apparatus
Joel Migdal
The State:
Political organization
Government
Monarch
Elected Representatives
Public Officials
Bureaucracy
Police
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Military
• Marxism
• Class rule
• capitalist state: tool of the exploiting dominant class;
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie
• socialist state: interests of all the working people;
dictatorship of the proletariat
Civil Society:
Meaning changes through time and place
Everything that is not the state
Individuals working in non-governmental organizations
Interest groups
Pressure groups
Businesses
Religious groups
Social movements
Protesters
Global Civil Society
The two interact

Coercion
Persuasion
Consent
Reform
Transformation
Rebellion
• 1) For you personally, what is more important: the state or civil society? Why?
• 2) For you personally, which should have more power: the state or civil society?
Why?
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Chapter 7: The Nature, Purpose, and Functions of a Modern State
• Definitions of the State
• Historical Development of the Theories of the Origins of the State
• Evolutionary or Natural Theory of the State
• Social Contract Theory
• Force Theory: Might is Right
• Divine Right of Kings
• Characteristics or Elements of a State
• People (population)
• Territory
• Government
• Sovereignty
• Nature of the State
• View 1:
• Aristotle
• natural; into which people are born
• View 2:
• Social contract
• Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau
• View 3:
• Weber
• Rests on force and violence
• Political power is coercive power
• Sustained or backed by police, military, courts, laws
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• View 4
• Pharaohs, God-Kings, Slave-Owning Societies, Feudal

Societies
• State and Society
• State and government
• State vs. Nation
• Purpose of the State
• Aristotle: The good life
• Locke: Common good
• Cicero: Res publica
• Marx: common essence
• Rousseau: General interest
• Aquinas: Summumbonum (supreme good)
• Liberal ideas of the common good: Adam Smith
• Communitarian ideas of the common good
• Philip Selznick
• Norms and moral values determine the social identity of

persons
• Functions of government
• National defence
• Establish justice
• General welfare
• Secure liberty
• Policing: Order and security
• protect people from violence
• protect property from theft
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• Taxation
• Fix legal relations between
• Wife and husband
• Parents and children
• Economic Management: Regulate property holding,

transmission, and interchange; determine liabilities for debt and for crime
• Determine contract rights between individuals
• Define and punish crime
• Administer justice in civil cases
• Determine political duties, privileges, and citizens’ relations
• Relate with foreign powers: preserve the state from external

threat or infringement; advance international interests
• Ministrant Functions
• Regulate trade and industry
• Making money: coins and bills
• Set up standard weights and measures
• Licensing
• Tariffs
• Navigation laws
• Regulate labor
• Infrastructure and Other Public Goods: Maintain

transportation systems, roads and highways
• Maintain post offices
• Public utilities:
• Maintain water works,
• Manufacture and distribute gas
• Regulate sanitation
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• Investment in Human Capital: Education and Health
• Pension
• Welfare State Function: Food and shelther: Care for the

disabled and the poor; safety net to protect vulnerable groups
• Care for nature: forests, rivers, stocking bodies of water with

fish
• Sumptuary laws, such as prohibition laws
• Move towards privatization
• 1) For you personally, what is the most convincing explanation of the nature of
the state: natural, social contract, or force? Why?
• 2) For you personally, what is the most important function of the state? Why?
• 3) For you personally, in what function/s has the state (where you live) failed?
Explain.
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Chapter 8: Types of Power, Authority, Legitimacy, and Sovereignty
• Power
• ability of A to get B to do what A wants
• from persuasion to physical force
• Foucault: “a whole series of particular mechanisms, definable

and defined, which seem likely to induce behaviors or discourses” (Foucault, 2007, p. 60).
• Sources of Political Power
• Percolation-up model
• Bottom up
• Citizens have power
• Through elections, citizens give power to the representatives
• Critique: in many instances, governments ignore their

citizens
• Social movements: civil rights
• Drip-down model
• Top down
• Leaders have power and impose order
• But citizens can overthrow government when they elect

different leaders
• Authority
• Government’s ability to exercise power without using force;
• A legitimate government has a high level of authority
• Citizens obey laws because they believe they are right (not
because of fear of being punished)
• Legitimacy
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• A government is legitimate when the citizens accept the
government’s political decisions
• A government is legitimate when the citizens believe the

government has a right to hold power
• When the citizens do not consider the government

legitimate, the government will have less power
• Sources of Political Legitimacy
• Tradition
• Habit
• History
• Religion
• Ethnic Identity
• International Recognition
• Sovereignty
• The right of the government to exercise political power over

citizens and control over a geographic boundary
• A government is sovereign when it can give final decisions

within a political boundary.
• 1) For you personally, what is the most important power the state must have?
Why?
• 2) For you personally, what power should the state NOT have? Why?
• 3) Should the state have the power to kill people? Explain.
• 4) To what extent should religion play a role in the affairs of the state? Explain.
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Test Questions for Module 8: Power, Authority, Legitimacy, and Sovereignty
Authority refers to
A) The ability of the government to exercise power without the use of force
B) A government ruled by many
C) A government ruled by one
D) A government ruled by a few rich
E) A government ruled by the majority
ANSWER: A
Anarchy is one extreme type of government where no one rules. The other end of the political
spectrum where the government has complete control over the lives of citizens is
A) Totalitarianism
B) Authoritarianism
C) Autocracy
D) Constitutional monarchy
E) Socialism
ANSWER: A
In the drip-down model, political power comes from

A) The leaders
B) The citizens
C) The middle class
D) The dominant religion
E) The mass media
ANSWER: A
In the percolation-up model, political power comes from

A) The citizens
B) The leaders
C) The middle class
D) The dominant religion
E) The mass media
ANSWER: A
The following is not a source of political legitimacy

A) Freedom
B) International recognition
C) Religion
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D) History
E) Habit
ANSWER: A
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Chapter 9: Political Obligation and Resistance (Civil Disobedience and
Revolution)
• Political Obligation
• Law abiding
• Vote
• Status quo
• Resistance
• Civil disobedience
• Revolution
Resistance Reform Political Obligation

Reaction
Revolution Welfare State Reform Status Quo Conserve Old Values Reaction
• Civil Disobedience
•
• Social Revolution
• a turning point in the social and political history of a society
• As the old class clings on to power through the control of the state apparatus,
the new class of people overthrow the old class' ancien régime
• setting up of a new social system
• American Revolution
• French Revolution
• English Revolution
• Russian Revolution
• Chinese Revolution
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• 1) Why are the people politically obligated to obey the law?
• 2) For you personally, what are the legitimate reasons that people can have in
order to wage a revolution? Explain.
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Chapter 10: Constitutionalism: Political and Social Change: Reforms,
Revolutions, and Military Coups
• Constitution
• The basic law of each country, which defines the powers of

government, specifies offices and their authority and the rights of citizens
• Rules and principles by which a country is politically

organized
• Can be written or unwritten
• Flexible and inflexible
• Constitution’s purpose
• Establish government
• Defines the powers and limits of government
• Protects the rights of citizens
• Constitutionalism
• The belief according to which government defer to the

constitutional principles and rules and uphold the rule of law
• Constitutional democracy
• Government that is limited, as its power is clearly delineated

in the constitution
• Constitutional government
• A political regime where law limits the use of power
• Constitutional power
• Powers that the constitution grants the political leaders
• Clear and present danger
• U.S.A.: a situation in which basic principles of the

constitution can be disregarded in exigent cases
• Citizen-initiated referendum
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• A democratic means for constitutional or legislative
enactment which bypasses the legislature
• When citizens’ petition for a proposition reaches a certain

number of signatories, the legislative body is required to put it to a referendum for the
citizens to decide, and thereafter enact it into law, if passed
• In Switzerland and some states in the U.S.
• Constitutional referendum
• A proposal to change the constitution through public vote.
• Each country has a different set of rules on majority

decisions in order for changes to take place
• Common law
• The fundamental law of a country that comes from court law

reports, not from the constitution or statute books
• Originally, law which was common to all England which was

developed over hundreds of years from English courts, adopted, and developed further
in countries that use this system.
Revolution Reform Status Quo Military

Coups
• Types of Constitution
• Flexible and rigid
• Separation of Powers
• Parliamentary sovereignty
• Judicial review
• Federalism and Unitarianism
• Federalism
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• Different levels of government
• Some autonomy at the lower levels (state or province)
• Unitarianism
• Centralized
• Local government and administration are direct extensions of the national

state
• Authoritarian vs. Democratic Constitutions
• Contentions
• SIdneyTarrow and Charles Tilly
• Sometimes conflict cannot be resolved through formal political institutions, such as

political parties, elections, and constitutions
• Non-Revolutionary Contentions
• Revolutionary Contentions
• Social revolution, insurgency, and terrorism are forms of contention.
• Contentions: Working for Social Change
• Social Movements
• Revolutions
• Social revolution
• Political revolution
• Anti-colonial revolution
• Insurgency and Civil War
• Terrorism
• Any action that causes harm to people, nature, or property

that is a violation of international humanitarian law or the laws of war
• e.g., a state's use of violence, such as bombing, against a

group of people it wants to keep out of politics
• e.g., a militant's group bombing civilians
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• Everyday Resistance
• James Scott
• Efforts to resist power where there is no large-scale

mobilization
• e.g., workers violate rules and engage in work slowdown
• There could be barriers to participate in or coordinate with

social movement activities
• Women and minority groups can be empowered through

everyday resistance
• Reform
• Parliamentary change
• Role of civil society too
• Structure of society remains the same in essence
• From dictatorship to democracy
• Welfare State: From individualism to social welfare
• Revolution
• Overthrow of the existing structures of society
• Radical change
• Class relations change
• Causes of Revolution
• Relative deprivation
• Huntington, Gurr
• Modernization causes disturbances that provoke revolutions
• structural change (such as modernization or changing status of elite group) leads

to relative deprivation and discontent
• Resource mobilization and political opportunities
• Skocpol
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• break down of the state leads gives political opportunities, for example, for
peasant mobilization, for revolution
• Skocpol
• Rational choice
• Lichbach'sThe Rebel's Dilemma
• People want change and revolutions
• But lack of communication among like-minded (pro-revolution) people as well as

repression limit them from waging successful collective action
• Hence, status quo is maintained
• Culture or "framing" explanations
• John Foran
• common grievances, common interests, political opportunites, and solutions to

collection action are not sufficient
• people must have ideas or frames that push them to engage in revolution
• Military Coups
• Palace putsch or palace coup
• Military takes over
• Timocracy
• Small group of people overthrow and replace individuals or

groups within the same class to gain power
• Same class remain in power
• 1) What are the major political and social problems where you live? Explain.
• 2) What is the best way to solve the major political and social problems you have
cited: reform, revolution, or military coup? Explain.
• 3) What are the benefits and setbacks in having a military coup?
• 4) What are the causes of the "Arab Spring" of 2011?
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Test Questions for Chapter 10: Constitutionalism: Political and Social Change: Reforms,
Revolutions, and Military Coups
In a democracy, the constitution

B) Is the fundamental law of a country
C) Establishes government
D) Defines the powers and limits of government
E) Protects the rights of citizens
ANSWER: A
An amendment
B) Is a change in some provisions of the constitution
C) Adds new elements in the existing constitution
D) Revises certain aspects of the existing constitution for the purpose of social reform
E) keeps up with the needs of the changing times
ANSWER: A
Rule of law means

B) Without exception, everyone is obliged to obey the law
C) Rich and poor people need to follow the law
D) Political leaders are not exempted from the requirement of obeying the law
E) Not one person is above the law
ANSWER: A
With which concept are Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly associated?
A) Contention
B) Cause and effects
C) Clamor for democracy
D) Communism
E) Communication theory
ANSWER: A
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Which is an example of "everyday form of resistance"?
A) Work slowdown
B) Reform
C) Revolution
D) Mass mobilization
E) Social movements
ANSWER: A
Why do people engage in "everyday forms of resistance" if there are social movements with
which they can be united?
A) There could be impediments to participate in and coordinate with the activities of social
movements.
B) Laziness
C) Exhaustion
D) Boycott
E) Lack of discipline
ANSWER: A
Which are examples of terrorism?

A) There could be impediments to participate in and coordinate with the activities of social
movements.
B) Laziness
C) Exhaustion
D) Boycott
E) Lack of discipline
ANSWER: A
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Chapter 11: Contemporary Issues and Debates in Political Science
• Sustainable Development: From Environmental Crisis to Environmental Protection
• World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED)
• Sustainable development is "developmentthat meets the needs the needs of the

present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs," including economic growth and protection of the environment, each one
reinforcing the other.
• Elements
• 1) Population
• People
• Water and Food
• 2) Changing Policies on the Use of Resources
• Non-Renewable Energy
• Coal
• Oil
• Natural Gas
• Nuclear Power
• New Types of Energy
• Fuel Cells
• Promising Energy Sources: Hydrogen, Water, Air Based
• Renewable Energy
• Solar
• Photovoltaic Cells
• Solar Thermal
• Wind
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• Geothermal
• Biomass
• Tidal
• Greenhouse Gases:
• Carbon Dioxide
• Methane
• Nitrous Oxide
• Ozone
• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
• Carbon Monoxide (CO)
• Particulates
• Water Vapor
• 3) Nature and the Environment
• Climate Change
• Extinction
• Policies Affecting People, Animals, Nature, and Resources: Protection,

Conservation, etc.
• Michael E. Zimmerman. (1994). Contesting Earth's Future. Berkeley: University of

California Press.
• 1) Deep Ecology: Anthropocentric Humanism vs. Ecocentrism
• 2) Social Ecology: Economic System, Authoritarian Social Structures; Reform

Current Practices; Curb Pollution, Use Natural Resources Wisely
• 3) Radical Ecology: Reject Current Mainstream Models of Development;

Counterculture; Emancipation, Multiple Paths
• 4) Eco-Feminism: Hierarchy
• Lester R. Brown. (2011). World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental

Economic Collapse. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
• Deteriorating Foundation
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• Falling Water Tables and Shrinking Harvests
• Eroding Soils and Expanding Deserts
• Rising Temperatures, Melting Ice, and Food Security
• Plus: Forest Fires, Floods, Diseases
• Consequences
• Emerging Politics of Food Scarcity
• Environmental Refugees: The Rising Tide
• Mounting Stresses, Failing States
• Response: Plan B
• Building an Energy-Efficient Global Economy
• Harnessing Wind, Solar, and Geothermal Energy
• Restoring the Economy's Natural Support Systems
• Feeding Eight Billion
• Watching the Clock
• Saving Civilization
• Recommendations for Environmental Policies. Virginia Brodine. (2007). Red Roots, Green
Shoots. New York: International Publishers.
1. Jobs for a Sustainable Society: Mass transit, lead paint and asbestos removal,
redevelop old industrial sites, smart growth urban planning,
2. Environmental Justice: End polluting communities of the poor and minorities
3. Energy Use: From coal, oil, gas, and uranium to solar, wind, and geothermal
4. Farm and Forest Land: No to monoculture and chemical dependence; organic
5. Pollution Prevention
6. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
7. No to Anti-Environmental Trade Relations
• CRITICAL THINKING: What Can be Done?

• 1) What other policies should we recommend to
governments at the local, country, and global levels?
• 2) What else can we do as individuals to save, protect,
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preserve nature, the environment, resources, and animals from extinction?
• 3) React to the following statement: The problem is not

population growth growing exponentially and food growing arithmetically, as Malthus
claimed. There is enough food to feed everyone on Eath. The problem is the control and
distribution of resources, including water and food.
Alphabetically Arranged
• Animal Rights
• Civil Liberties: Privacy, surveillance, drones
• Civil Rights: Non-Discrimination, Gender, LGBTQI: Theory vs. Practice
• Corruption and Transparency
• Different Models of Development
• Global North and Global South
• Human Rights: Economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights
• Nature and the Environment
• Non-Governmental Organizations
• Non-State Actors
• People crossing borders: migrants, refugees, overseas contract workers...
• Power of Corporations
• Role and Power of Money in Elections
• Role of the State vs. Non-Intervention: Health, Education, Social Welfare, etc.
• Social Movements
• Wages, Income Gap, and Inequality
• Working with other countries
• 1) For you personally, what is the most important contemporary issue in political
science? Why? What solutions do you recommend?
• 2) For you personally, what is the least important contemporary issue in political
science? Why?
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Chapter 12: Forms of Government
Political Regimes
Democracy Dictatorship
People’s participation Hands of a few
• Government
• Institution through which public policies are made and
enforced
• Three kinds of power in government
• Legislative
• Executive
• Judicial
• Three characteristics of government
• People’s participation
• Democracy
• Dictatorship
• Distribution of power between central government and
local governments
• Unitary
• Federal
• Confederate
• Presidential vs. Parliamentary
• Presidential:
• U.S.A.
• legislative and executive branches are separate
• Parliamentary:
• U.K.
• Prime minister or premier and cabinet are members of the
parliament
• PM is the leader of the majority party or group of parties
• PM selects cabinet members from Members of Parliament
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(MPs), with parliament’s approval
Anarchy
• no government
• no rule
Aristocracy
• a small ruling class
• Ancient Sparta
Authoritrianism:
• control most aspects of citizens’ lives; under different rulers;
• Egypt for a long time
Autocracy:
• control most aspects of citizens’ lives; one ruler;
• Saddam Hussein’s rule
Communism
• Communist Party rule in a Socialist state: (Marxism-Leninism; socialist republic or
people’s republic or democratic people’s republic)
Confederation
• Constitutional:
• government power limited by rules, such as freedom of
speech and freedom of religion:
• Germany, Japan, UK, USA
Constitutional monarchy
• King or queen as ceremonial head of state
• Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom
• Corporatocracy
• Demarchy
Democracy
• Types
• Majoritarian vs. Pluralist
• Majoritarian:
• Conventional and institutional action
• Pluralist
• competing interest groups participate
• in addition to voting: many ways to access and
accommodate different forms of conventional participation
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• Direct vs. Indirect (representative)
• Characteristics
• rule by many
• universal participation: elections
• respect for the individual
• political equality
• majority rule
• minority rights
• compromise
• individual freedoms
• capitalism (free enterprise) depends on individual freedoms
• Social democracy or democratic socialism (mixed economy):
importance of government intervention in the economy
• Role of Internet and information flow
Democratization
• Process of transition from authoritarianism to democracy
Dictatorship
• Rule by one for one’s own benefit
• Nazi Germany
• Duchy and grand duchy
• Elite Theory
• Emirate
• Ethnocracy
• Fascism
• Federalism
• Hereditary monarchy
• Islamic state
• Liberal democracy
• Matriarchy
• Meritocracy
• Mobocracy
• Monarchy
• Multi-party system
• Oligarchy
• few wealthy rule
• Renaissance Venice
• Parliamentary System
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• Plutocracy
• Presidential system
• Principality
• Puppet state
• Republic
• Government is based on consent of the governed
• Power is exercised by representatives who are responsible to
citizens
• Semi-presidential system
• Single-party system
• Theocracy
• Timocracy
• Totalitarianism: absolutism
• Two-party system
• Unitary state
• Welfare State
Power structure or distribution of authority

Confederation
Empire
Federation or federal system
Hegemony
Unitary state
Authoritarian state
Autocracy
Despotism
Illiberal democracy
Semi-authoritarianism
Dictatorship
Totalitarianism
Democracy: Rule by the People

Direct
Representative
Republic
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Monarchy: Rule by One
Absolute
Constitutional
Rule by a Few
Aristocracy
Military junta
Oligarchy
Plutocracy
Timocracy
Anarchy
Theocracy
• 1) For you personally, what is your most preferred form of government? Explain.
• 2) For you personally, what is your least preferred form of government? Explain.
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Chapter 13: Democracy, Political Preference, and Voting Behaviour
References:
Dickovick& Eastwood. (2013). Comparative Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Janda, Berry, Goldman, &Schildkraut.(2015). The Challenge of Democracy.
Democracy And Political Participation
Two Definitions
• Procedural
• minimalist
• for example, holding of competitive elections regularly
• Substantive
• focus on outcomes
• actual representative
• equality
Types of Democracy
• Representative Democracy
• election
• run for public office
• vote for representatives
• Direct Democracy
• no mediation
• referendum
• communal assemblies or meetings and decision making
Stages of Democratization
• The process of undergoing changes that promote democracy
• 1) Transition to Democracy
• process of moving from dictatorship to democracy
• 2) Democratic Consolidation
• once democracy is achieved, it is further strengthened to ensure there is no
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return to dictatorship
Unconventional Participation or Activism

Uncommon action to challenge established institutions or dominant culture
Support For Unconventional Participation
The Effectiveness of Unconventional Participation
Unconventional Participation In the U.S.A. And The World
Social and Political Movements
Trade union
Direct action
Sign petition
Teach in
Boycott
Demonstration
Strikes
Occupy spaces or buildings
Conventional Participation
Supportive policies
Influence or challenge policies
Compared With What? Popular Participation In Politics
Conventional Participation In America
Participating Through Voting

Voting as an Expression of the Popular Will
Expansion of Suffrage
Voting On Policies
Voting For Candidates
Recall
Initiative and Referendum
Explaining Political Participation

Compared With What? Voter Turnout in European and American Elections since 1945
Patterns of Participation Over Time
The Standard Socioeconomic Explanation
Low Voter Turnout In America
Looking To The Future Will The South Rise Over The North?
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Participation and Freedom, Equality, and Order
Participation And Freedom
Participation And Equality
Participation And Order
Participation And The Models of Democracy

Participation And Majoritarianism
Participation And Pluralism
Nominations
Party Affiliation
Political Parties
Organization through which candidates are sponsored through a nomination process
Citizens’ main path of participation in politics and government is through voting in
competition elections
Functions of political parties
Recruit and choose leaders and candidates
Nominate candidates
Structure choices in voting and simplify voters’ choices at the voting polls
Organize campaigns
Propose and represent alternative and competing programs of government
Control and direct government when in power
Coordinate government officials’ actions
One party, two-party system, multi-party system
National level parties
Provincial, prefecture, or state level parties
Local level parties: City, town, etc.
Party Ideology and Organization
Conservatives, Liberals, etc.
Value order, liberty, and equality to different degrees
Party programs
Campaigns
Political Context
Financing
Strategies and Tactics
Party-centered
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Issue-oriented
Image-oriented
Mass media, websites, advertising
Voting Choice
Party Identification
Independents
Issues and Policies
Candidates’ Qualities
Campaign Effects
Campaigns, Elections, and Parties in Different Models

Parties and the Majoritarian Model
Parties and the Pluralist Model
• 1) To what extent is the place where you live a democracy? Explain.
• 2) What are the merits and demerits of a democracy? Explain.
• 3) Explain the reasons for which you participate politically (or not) by voting
during elections.
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Chapter 14: Prerequisites and Measuring of Democracy
References:
Dickovick& Eastwood. Comparative Politics.

Lipset, S. L. (March 1959). Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political
Legitimacy. The American Political Science Review 53 (1): 69–105.
Causes of Democratiation
• 1) Modernization theory
• Economic development promotes democracy
• Debatable relationship though
• 2) Culture
• Certain values, attitudes, beliefs, and practices promote democracy
• 3) International System
• What happens at the international level affects what happens within a country
• 4) Domestic Institutions
• countries with impersonal institutions promote democracy more than without
• 5) Agents of Changes
• Individuals and groups can affect the growth and consolidation of democracy
• 6) Multiple Causes
• A combination of the above causes
Prerequisites and Measuring of Democracy

• Order and civil liberties
• Equality and civil rights
• Active citizenry
• Interest groups
• Organized group of people who have the same political
beliefs, attitudes, interests, political goals who support candidates, influence officials
and public policy, form public opinion, and influence the political system
• Roles of interest groups
• Represent
• Participate
• Educate
• Build agenda
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• Monitor programs
• Formation of Interest Groups
• One: Disturbance Theory (David Truman)
• When disturbance affects people adversely, they form
interest groups.
• Two: Robert Salisbury
• Leadership quality is an important factor in a successful
interest group creation
• Three: Socio-economic level
• The rich and more educated ones are more likely to create
and participate in lobbies
• Economic Groups
• Corporations
• Labour unions
• Farm groups
• Trade associations
• Professional associations: Medical Doctors, Psychologists,
Journalists,...
• Non-Economic Groups
• Religious groups
• Women’s groups
• Minority groups
• Public interest groups
• Interest Group System
• Public interest groups
• Single issue groups
• For or against gun control
• For or against abortion
• For or against environmental concens
• Ideological groups
• Resources of Interest Groups
• Active membership
• Free riders
• Lobbyists: internal or hired from public relations firms (1,000
lobbyists in Washington, D.C. for foreign interests)
• In the U.S., Political action committees (PACs):
• Corporations, unions, individuals, or groups created PACs
• Pool resources together from members’ and employees’
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donations and turn over the funds to candidates
• Qualities of a Powerful Interest Group
• Many members
• Solid agreement among members about goals and issues
• Well organized
• Well funded
• Inside Lobbying
• Access to officials
• Influence officials and policy making
• Give information to officials to support policy of which they
are in favour
• Interest groups shows their strength in supporting policy or
policy change
• Advocates
• opponents
• Lobby legislative, cabinet, courts, etc.
• Outside Lobbying
• Grassroots lobbying: Advocacy by constituency
• Electoral Action
• Votes
• PAC money (U.S.A.)
• Lobbying Tactics
• Information campaigns
• High-tech: social media, polling, emails
• Coalition building
• Bias in Interest Groups
• Pluralist model
• check membership bias, citizen groups, and business
mobilization
• Majoritarian model
• The winning party will have a greater power to give interest
groups access to and voice in policymaking
• Madisonian Dilemma
• Self-interest advocacy is allowed in a free society
• Minority rights are protected by checks and balances
• Pressure groups
• Media
• New media
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• 1) To what extent does the place where you live maintain order, liberty, equality,
and rights? Explain
• 2) Explain the reasons for which you are (or not) an active citizen, making
democracy vibrant.
• 3) What are the most active political groups where you live? Explain.
• 4) To what extent can the mass media where you live talk about government
unresponsiveness, waste, inefficiency, and corruption? Explain.
• 5) To what extent are you airing your political views in the new social media:
Facebook, blogs, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and other sites.
• 6) Watch one of the following movies, discuss how democracy operated in

action.
• Mandela (1996)
• Solidarnosc (2005)
• Aung San Suu Kyi: Lady of No Fear (2011).
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Chapter 15: Social, Cultural, and Economic Dimensions of Democracy
• The standard socio-economic model
• The higher the economic income, social standing, and

education of a people, the higher the likelihood for political participation
• Decline of voter turnout
• Normative Theory:
• In a free country, people have the right to choose to

participate or not in government, politics, and elections
• Individuals are free to use their resources to influence

government to promote their own interests, as long as no laws are violated
• Elections are institutional mechanism to implement democracy during which citizens

choose among issues and candidates
• 1) What is the most important determinant of democracy: social, cultural, or

economic dimension? Explain.
• 2) What are your recommendations to make the place where you live more
democratic? Explain.
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Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of democracy.
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Chapter 16: Political Ideologies: Caliphates, Communism, Socialism,
and Capitalism
• Caliphates
-(Arabic: ‎‫ خِالفة‬khilāfa) is a form of Islamic government led by a caliph

-Caliph: a person seen as a religious and political successor to the prophet Mohammed and a
leader of the whole ummah (Muslim community)
-The Rashidun caliphs directly succeeded the prophet Mohammed as leaders of the ummah
-The shura is a process of community consultation that was used to choose the Rushidun caliphs
who directly succeeded the prophet
-After the Rashidun period, many Muslim countries—mostly hereditary monarchies—have

asserted that they were caliphates
 Sunni Islam
-A caliph, as a head of state, must be elected by Muslims or their representatives
-But in practice, it became a hereditary monarchy when Islam started
 Shia Islam
-a caliph must be an imam that God chose from the the Ahl al-Bayt—the "Family of the
House"—or the direct descendants of Mohammed.
 Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate#
 1 Etymology
 2 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
o 2.1 Succession to Muhammad
o 2.2 Rashidun Caliphs
o 2.3 Ali's caliphate and the rise of the Umayyad dynasty
 3 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
 4 Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258, 1261–1517)
o 4.1 Under the Mamluk Sultanate of Cairo (1261–1517)
o 4.2 Parallel caliphates to the Abbasids
 4.2.1 Fatimid Caliphate (909–1171)
 4.2.2 Umayyad Caliphate of Córdoba (929–1031)
 4.2.3 Almohad Caliphate (1147–1269)
 5 Ottoman Caliphate (1517–1924)
o 5.1 Abolition of the Caliphate (1924)
 6 Sokoto Caliphate (1804–1903)
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 7 Khilafat Movement (1919–1924)
 8 Sharifian Caliphate (1924–1925)
 9 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (2014–present)
 10 Non-political caliphates
o 10.1 Sufi Caliphates
o 10.2 Ahmadiyya Muslim Caliphate (1908-present)
 11 Religious basis
o 11.1 Qur'an
o 11.2 Hadith
o 11.3 Prophesied Caliphate of the Mahdî
o 11.4 The Sahaba of Muhammad
o 11.5 Sayings of Islamic theologians
 12 Period of dormancy
o 12.1 Ahmadiyya view
o 12.2 Islamic call
o 12.3 al-Qaeda's Caliphate goals
o 12.4 Opposition
 13 Government
o 13.1 Electing or appointing a Caliph
o 13.2 Sunni belief
o 13.3 Shi'a belief
o 13.4 Majlis al-Shura (parliament)
o 13.5 Accountability of rulers
o 13.6 Rule of law
o 13.7 Economy
 14 Difference between caliphate and democracy
o 14.1 Source of legislation
o 14.2 Selection of the leader
 15 Notable caliphs
• Political Economy
• Capitalism
• Socio-economic formation that replaced feudalism
• Anarchy of production, overproduction, periodic crises in boom-bust cycle
• Ideology based on the importance of capital, capitalists, individualism, private

ownership of the means of production, competition, and extraction of surplus
value or profit
• Social nature of labor vs. private form of appropriation
• Economic inequality is normal; rich-poor gap; 1% vs. 99%
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• From pure competition to monopoly and financial oligarchy
• Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism as Socialism
• Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein
• Reject the overthrow of the bourgeoise state machine and the capitalist class
rule
• Reject class struggle
• Reject dictatorship of the proletariat
• Smooth evolution
• Reformism as the way to social change
• Anti-communist ideology
• Ideology based on social welfare
• Combine priave ownership and social justice; social inequality and general
prosperity
• No change in class relations in society
• Lower Stage of Communism as Socialism
• Marx & Engels, Lenin, and Mao Zedong
• Social revolution as the way to social change
• Ideology based on the importance of workers, peasants, and working people
• Socialist state: the political aspect of a society that is formed on the basis of a
socialist economy.
• To each according to the quantity and quality of labor done.
• Communism as the Higher Stage
• From each according to one's ability, to each according to one's needs.
• 1) What are the merits and demerits of the caliphates in the historical past?
Explain.
• 2) Explain the reasons for which you are in favor or not in favor of establishing
caliphates in the present-day world.
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• 3) What are the positive and negative aspects of capitalism? Explain.
• 4) What are the positive and negative aspects of social democracy (socialism)?
Explain.
• 5) What are the positive and negative aspects of the lower stage of commuism
(socialism)? Explain.
• 6) What are the positive and negative aspects of communism? Explain.
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Chapter 17: Mapping of Political Preferences
• Political Ideologies and Political Preferences (Janda)

• Communitarian
• Conservative
• Libertarian
• Liberal
Conservatives prefer order (to freedom) and freedom (to equality)

Liberals prefer freedom (to order) and equality (to freedom)
Libertarians: prefer freedom above all
Communitarians: prefer equality or order (and willing to give up freedom)
(In alphabetical order)
Abortion
Christianity
Gender
Hate crimes
“Illegal” drugs
Judaism
Islam
Limited federal government
Marriage
Palestine
Poverty
President George W. Bush
President Bill Clinton
President Barack Obama
Taxes
Undocumented persons
War
War on terrorism
“You can act as you please, as long as no one is hurt."
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• 1) Discuss your most favored personal political preferences. Explain.
• 2) Discuss your least favored personal political preferences. Explain.
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Chapter 18: Political Philosophies: Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and
Muslim Philosophies
Ancients vs. Moderns

 Ancients
o Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome provided models of excellence
 Moderns
o Modern science
Ancient Political Philosophy

• Code of Hammurabi
• Mosaic Law
• Bhagavad Gita
• Manusastra
• Arthasastra
• Lao Zi:Taoism
• Confucius
• Socrates and Plato
• Aristotle
Medieval Political Philosophy

• Augustine
• Aquinas
Modern Political Philosophy

• Machiavelli
• Thomas Hobbes
• John Locke
• Jean-Jacques Rousseau
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Michel Foucault
• Noam Chomsky
Muslim Political Philosophy
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1. Al-Kindi: 9th Century; Neo-Platonist; founder of Arab philosophy
2. Al-Farabi: 10th C; (872-95 AD) introduced Greek & Roman philosophy into Muslim
philosophical discussions: dicussed logic
3. Avicenna: 11th C; Aristotelian & Neo-Platonist
4. Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi: 12th C; philosophy of illumination
5. End of 12th C, decline of philosophy because al-Ghazali (1058-1111AD) argued
that philosophy was not compatible with religion
6. Ibn Rushd: 1126-1198 AD
7. Averroes: In Andalusia (Spanish); in defense of philosophy against the claim that
it was incompatible with religion; he wrote commentaries on Aristotle
8. Later: Muslim philosophy moved from Aristotelianism to mystical philosophy: Ibn
Arabi (1165-1240 AD) and Ibn Sabin
9. Ibn Khaldun: (1332-1406 AD)
10. Later: Shiite philosophers in Persia:
11. Nasir al-Di al-Tusi
12. Mir Damad
13. MullaSadra
14. Now: Tariq Ramadan
References:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/muqtedar-khan/5-islamic-philosophers-every-muslim-must-
read_b_6912014.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/06/muslim-philosophers-
2014610135114713259.html
• 1) Explain which western political philosophy has the greatest positive impact on
you.
• 2) Explain which western political philosophy you like the least.
• 3) Explain which Muslim political philosophy has the greatest positive impat on
you.
• 4) Explain which Muslim political philosophy you like the least.
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Discuss the similarities and differences between ancient political philosophy and modern
political philosophy.
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Chapter 19: Theories of Comparative Politics: Political Systems of
Developing & Developed Countries
• Sub-National Non-Centralised Systems

• Bands
• Tribes
• Autonomous cities in Medieval Europe
• Centralised Systems
• Chiefdoms
• Sovereign states
• Supranational Political Systems
• Empires
• Leagues
• Confederation and Federation:
• Commonwealth
• European Union
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization
• United Nations
• Types of Political Systems
• Authoritarianism
• Monarchy
• Democracy
• Number of Rulers: Plato
• Monarchy: Philosopher-King
• Aristocracy: Best form of rule by a few, based on wisdom
• Timocracy, based on military virtue
• Oligarchy: rule by a few based on greed
• Democracy
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• Anarchy: lawlessness
• Tyranny results
• Number of Rulers: Aristotle
• One: Monarchy vs. Tyranny
• Few: Aristocracy vs. Oligarchy
• Polity or “constitutional democracy” vs. Mob Rule of Lawless

Democracy
• Machiavelli
• In princely state: sovereignty is in one monarch or prince:

despotic vs. Non-despotic
• In republics, sovereignty is in the plurality or collectivity of

power holders (aristocracy or democracy)
• Montesquieu
• Despotic form of government: lawless use of power by one

ruler
• Non-despotic form of government: constitutional forms of

monarchy and the republic
• In Terms of Institutions
• Parliamentarism
• Cabinet Government
• Presidentialism
• Forms of Legitimacy: Weber
• Charismatic
• Traditional: hereditary
• Rational-Legal
• Based on Succession
• Heredity
• Constitutional Prescription: “In case the president is
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impeached or dies...”
• Election
• Force: Hitler, Mussolini
• Autocratic and Non-Autocratic
• Autocratic
• Authoritarian
• Totalitarian
• Non-Autocratic
• Constitutional Democracy
• Rights
• Role of Political Parties
• 1) Which political system appeals to you the most? Explain.
• 2) Which political system appeals to you the least? Explain.
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Chapter 20: Public Policy Analysis
• David Easton: Political System Model

• Inputs
• Demands
• Support
• Throughputs
• 3 branches of government
• Government
• Outputs
• Policies
• Decisions
• Public Policies
• Domestic Policy
• Foreign and Defence Policy
• Public Policies and Their Purposes

• General action plans through which a government adopts to
• Pursue an objective
• Solve a social or other problem
• Counter a threat
• etc.
• Public policy disagreements happen because citizens have different views about
• Government goals
• Means to meet the goals
• How a given situation must be understood
• Order, freedom, and equality
• Policy Making Process
• Agenda building
• Formulation and adoption
• Implementation
• Evaluation and termination
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• Public Policy Tools
• Incentives: Inducements and rewards
• Disincentives: Deterrents
• Provide program or service
• Set up rules
• Types of Policies
• Distributive
• Allocate resources so that some sectors will receive certain services,

gains, advantage, or assistance
• Redistributional
• Transfer resources from one sector to another
• Regulatory
• Rules guiding the operations of
• Business markets
• Government programs
• Policymaking in Different Fields
• Regulatory
• Regulation vs. Deregulation
• Social Welfare
• Education Policy
• Economic Policy
• Goal
• Price Stability
• Full employment
• Economic growh
• Contending Approaches
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• Laissez-faire
• Keynesian
• Aggregate demand can be adjusted through both

monetary and fiscal policies
• Monetarist: Rely on money politics
• Supply-side
• Less tax and less government regulations
• Laissez-faire
• Sustainable development: population, nature, and resources
• Gender
• Human development
• Many others
• Budget
• Preparation
• Balancing
• Surplus and deficit
• Taxes and Use of Tax Money for Spending
• Why tax?
• Types of taxes
• To tax or not to tax?
• Challenges
• Government Policies and Individual Welfare
• Social and economic equality
• Poverty
• Equality over freedom
• Social welfare programs: provide minimum living standards
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• Employers’ and employees’ taxes pay for social security
• Social insurance
• Unemployment
• Disability
• Old age
• Public assistance
• Old age
• Needy families with dependent children
• Totally and permanently disabled
• Food stamps
• Subsidized housing
• Feminization of poverty
• Health Care
• Universal health care
• Education
• As equality of opportunity
• Public education
• Fragmentation and Coordination
• Different groups push and pull government to deal with an issue one way or the
other
• Fragmentation is normal in decentralized government system
• Coordination helps put coherent in policy
• Iron Triangles
• Also known as (a.k.a.) Cozy Triangle
• Ties between (1) congressional committees, (2) administrative agencies

the funding of which is arranged by the committees, and (3) the lobbyists who
work with both
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• Issue Networks
• Working relationships among different government units and non-

governmental groups provide coordination and cohesion
• e.g. Conservative American Enterprise Institute
• Liberal Brookings Institution
• Libertarian Cato Institute
• Non-profit groups
• Use public and private funding
• Membership dues
• Gifts from individuals and corporations
• Grants from foundations
• As well as interest groups’ income-generating activities
• Influence, use, and help develop policies
• 1) What are some of the major problems people face, when they want to
propose a public policy to improve the current situation?
• 2) What do you think is most important for a public policy recommendation to

become a reality?
• 3) For the problems confronting the place where you live, what publicy policy
would you recommend to improve the situation? Explain.
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Chapter 21: Public Administration
1) Public Administration (Upper Case)

-sub-discipline of Political Science
-institutional description
-policy analysis
-evaluation
-intergovernmental relations analysis
-not for profit
-service oriented
-public sector organizational theory (vs. market theories and private sector theories)
2) Public administration (lower case)

-institutions of public bureaucracy inside a country
-the organizational structures involved in public decision-making and implementation
-running the government
- the arrangements whereby public services are delivered
-Civil Service in the U.S.A. and the U.K.
-Public bodies at the regional and local levels
3) Now, there is a trend towards privatization of public institutions, utilities, and services
CRITICAL THINKING
 1) In what areas of work is pubic administration necessary? Cite an example. Explain.
 2) In what areas of work is public administration not necessary at all? Cite an example.
Explain.
 3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of public administration of providing

goods and services, such as mass transit system, roads, mail delivery, electricity, and water
supply? Explain.
 4) What are the advantages and disadvantages of private business administration of

providing goods and services, such as mass transit system, roads, mail delivery, electricity,
and water supply? Explain.
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Chapter 22: Local Government Systems
• Local Government
• A governing institution that has authority over a defined area within a country.
• In a federal system, a sub-state territorially defined area.
• LG authority is based upon its elected office.
• In Europe, it's usually multi-tiered.
• In Federal Germany below the state-level Lander are generally 2 tiers of local
government
• 1) The upper-tier Kreise
• 2) The lower-tier municipalities
• Regionalized states have three levels of local government
• Belgium, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain
• 1) Region
• 2) provinces or counties
• 3) communes
• Scandinavian countries, U.K., and its former colonies have two tiers (after 1888)
• 1) Lower-tier district authorities
• 2) Upper-tier county (in England & Wales) or regional auhtorities (in

Scotland after 1972)
• But some cities and counties in England with strong sense of community
has single-tier authorities (such as Rutland and the Isle of Wight).
• From 1996, the whole of Scotland and Wales was divived into single-tier
authorities.
• But in 2000, London restored its two-tier local government with the
establishment of the Greater London Authority to oversee strategic
functions, above a lower tier of metropolitan boroughs.
• In the U.S., below the state level is the common tier of local government called
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"county"
• But the existence of a second of municipalities depends on the local residents
• Usually, urban areas have two-tier local government
• Rural areas usually have only one-tier local government
• Education is placed under single-purpose elected local bodies in the U.S. states
(but concentrated in the tiered local government structure in Europe)
• Mayor system vs. committee system as the organization of the elected executive in local
government
• 1) U.S. and France
• Mayor is the political leader of a council
• In some smaller U.S. cities, the mayor is the figurehead and an unelected city
manager runs the city
• 2) U.K. and Sweden
• Previously in the U.K. and Sweden, councillors are elected

who make decisions by committee
• In 2000, the U.K. introducted an arrangment where most

local authorities could be run
• directly by elected majors,
• by elected mayors with an unelected city manager,
• or by a party group nominated mayor leading a cabinet.
• Othernon-executive councillors take on scrutiny and

representative functions only.
• Local Government Expenditures
• Scandinavia
• Social services: social security, secondary education, health

care in the county/province level
• Public utilities: water, gas, and electricity supply at the

commune/municipalities level
• U.K.
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• Education, planning and roads, environmental protection,
and leisure service, and continues to perform economic development functions
• Functions of Local Government
• 1) Encourage political education and participation
• 2) Provide rational, utilitarian, efficient services based on

local needs
• 3) Agent of central government
• Current Issues
• Changes
• Local government becomes buyer and contractor of services, not provider

anymore for some places
• Privatization: Private sector competes
• 1) In what areas of work are local governments useful, effective, and successful?
Cite an example. Explain.
• 2) In what areas of work are local governments not useful, not effective, and not
successful? Cite an example. Explain.
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Chapter 23: Political and Economic Development
Political Economy
• Issues
• Reducing poverty and inequality
• Macroeconomic Indicators
• Employment
• Inflation
• Social outcomes and human development
• Gender relations
• Racial and ethnic identities
• Satisfaction and happiness
• Gross national happiness vs. gross national product
• Cultural development
• Traditional ways of life
• Distinct groups and cultural pluralism
• Sustainability: Environmental impact
• Crisis of the Colonial System of Imperialism
• National liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
• After World War II, the colonial system of imperialism disintegrated.
• Many newly free countries have emerged.
• From Colonialism
• to independence.
• and neocolonialism?
• Causes of Development and Underdevelopment
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• Institutions: Mainstream Theories
• Markets
• States
• Culture and Development
• Beliefs, values, and practices that influence development outcomes
• Systems and Structures
• Imperialism
• World systems theory and dependency
• Theories of Economic Development of Newly-Free Countries explain the backwardness

of underdeveloped countries.
• Low labor productivity leads to low per capita income.
• Low living standards lead to low labor productivity.
• Low incomes lead to low living standards.
• Need to break the vicious circles of poverty.
• Need balanced growth.
• Expand the market.
• Factories must be built to produce consumer goods.
• Increase employment, income, and market.
• Assumption: Capitalism is the only way to development.
• They recommend:
• Industrialization
• Planning
• Domestic and Foreign financing of economic development projects
• Law of the Uneven Economic and Political Development of Capitalism
• Industrialization in the Developing Countries
• Economic Division of the World
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• International cartels and monopolies
• Raw materials
• World market
• Export of capital
• Economic Crisis
• Anarchy of production
• Overproduction
• Social Division of labor
• Social production vs. private accumulation of capital
• Political Development
• The development of institutions, attitudes, political culture, and values as part of

the political system of a country.
• Traditional Focus
• Nation building
• State building
• New Inclusions
• Good Governance: efficient, effective, and non-corrupt public

administration
• Democratization
• Rule of Law (protection of property rights)
• Development of civil society
• Internationally:
• National sovereignty
• Territorial integrity
• Uphold international commitments
• Domestically:
• Constitutional order
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• Political stability
• Government framework
• Rule of law
• Territorial reach of government institutions
• Legal-Rational Authority:
• Coercive powers
• Command obedience
• Bureaucracy
• division of labor
• functional specialization
• hierarchy and chain of command
• merit-based recruitment
• What Political Development Does
• state's ability to mobilize and allocate resources
• process policy inputs into outputs
• problem solving
• adapting to changing situations
• achieve goals
• Marxist Political Development
• Growth of class consciousness
• Growth of the organization of the proletariat which spearheads the overthrow of the
capitalist system, paving the way for socialism and communism
• A More Common Western View of Political Development
• Liberal democracy
• Accountable government
• Opportunities for political participation through exercise of free association and

expression
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• Debates over the Relationship of Economic Development and Political Development
• Dominant view: Economic development leads to political development.
• Intervening variables
• Literacy
• Interest groups
• Economic strength
• Problems in Political Development
• Combining political stability with political liberalization and democratization
• Protecting democratic transition and consolidation while undergoing economic structural

adjustment that leads to mass discontent and can lead to extremist political response.
• To what extent the locals believe political development matters are "foreign" and to what
extent will the locals accept "foreign" matters related to political development
• Political development is not linear.
• Political development can be reversed.
• Some states suffer downfall and decay.
• Other states die, such as the former Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Sudan, etc.
• New states are born:
• Europe: Serbia, Macedonia
• Africa: North Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea
• Asia-Pacific: Timor Leste
• 1) Do you believe political development and economic go hand in hand or not?

Explain.
• 2) What is more important: political development or economic development?

Explain.
• 3) Give a critique of the theories that explain underdevelopment.
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Chapter 24: Comparative Politics of Ethnic Conflict
 Contemporary armed conflicts

o Iraq, Western Sudan (Darfur), Afghanistan
o In the Global South: Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Middle East
o Philippines
o Peace agreements
 Types of Armed Conflict
o Hegemonic
o Limited
o Civil war
o Guerrilla war
o Ethnic conflict
 Causes of armed conflict
o Individual level
 Calculations and rational decisions
 Irrational decisions
o Domestic level
 Characteristics of a country: more or less prone to armed conflict
o Inter-country level
 Power transition
 Deterrence and arms race
• 1) Discuss an ethnic confict of which you are aware.
• 2) Why did that ethnic conflict happen? Explain.
• 3) What can be done to stop similar ethnic conflicts from happening? Explain.
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Chapter 25: Role of Religion in National and International Politics
• Religion
• Latin word: religiare--to bind.
• Ethics
• Tylor: (1871, p. 1): “Culture, or civilization… taken in its wide ethnographic sense is that
complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.” Culture refers to “the learned,
socially acquired traditions of thought and behavior found in human societies. It is a socially
acquired lifestyle that includes patterned, repetitive ways of thinking, feeling, and acting” (Harris
& Johnson, 2007, p. 10).
• System of faith and belief dealing with this world and this life and the other,
spiritual, or supernatural world and the afterlife.
• Holy books
• Traditional religions
• World religions
• Judaism
• Christianity
• Islam
• Wiccans
• Worship, rituals
• Ludwig Feuerbach: people make gods, ghosts, and devils in their image based on
their cultures and values
• Marx: conflict, “opiate of the people,” provides solace to the suffering people as
the reward is in the next life
• Weber: social change; Eastern religions hinders capitalism; Protestantism

promotes capitalism as a virtue.
• Durkheim: functionalism, religion plays a social function to bind people together

with common beliefs and practices; symbols, rituals; reverence; awe; special power
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• Auguste Comte:
1) Religious views: superstitions, myths, and faith
2) Philosophical views: Thinking about the relationship between thinking and

being
3) Scientific views: factual evidence, verification, experiments; falsifiability;

induction; replication
• Religion and Politics through the Ages
• Primitive Times
• Ancient Slavery
• Theocracies: God Kings
• Medieval Times
• Theology
• Feudalism
• Renaissance
• Humanism
• Modern Times
• Science over Religion
• Secularism
• Postmodern Societies
• To each, one's own
• Different Interpretations
• "New Age"
• Feminism
• Multiculturalism: Unity in Diversity
• Religion and Politics: Issues
• Ancient Greece: Antigone: Divine Law and Human Law
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• Medieval Europe: Aquinas: Divine Law, Natural Law, Human Law, Law of Nations,
Domestic Law
• Tyranny, Kingship, and Legitimacy
• Obedience and Rebellion
• Roman Catholic position on abortion
• Political Parties
• Germany: Christian Democrats
• Netherlands: Catholic People's Party
• National identity
• Poland: Roman Catholic
• Russia: Russian Orthodox
• Greece: Greek Orthodox
• Armenians and Georgians: Orthodox Christianity
• Current History
• Ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian Revolution
• Saudi Arabia
• ISIS or ISIL
• Religion and Politics in the Constitution?
• wall of separation between religion and politics
• freedom of religion
• freedom from religion
• Religion and Ideology
• Religious Right
• Maintain tradition
• Selective use of scriptures
• Intolerance
Page 100 of 136

• Religious Left
• Theology of Liberation, Minjung Theology, Theology of Struggle
• Tolerance, Acceptance
• Justice
• 1) Should religion play a role in national politics? Explain.
• 2) Should religion play a role in international politics? Explain.
• 3) If you belong to a minority religion (for example, Islam) in a majority-religion

country (for example, Christianity), do you want Christianity to play a major role in that
country? Explain.
• 4) If you belong to a minority religion (for example, Christianity) in a majority-

religion country (for example, Islam), do you want Islam to play a major role in that
country? Explain.
• 5) If you belong to a majority religion (for example, Islam) in a minority-religion

country (for example, Christianity), do you want Islam to play a major role in that
country? Explain.
• 6) If you belong to a majority religion (for example, Christianity) in a minority-

religion country (for example, Islam), do you want Christianity to play a major role in that
country? Explain.
Page 101 of 136

Chapter 26: Islamic Political System
Essential Features of the Islamic Political System by Abul Ala Maududi

Source: http://www.islam101.com/politics/politicalsystem.htm
The political system of Islam is based on three principles: Tawhid (unity of Allah), Risalat
(Prophethood) and Khilafat (vicegerency). It is difficult to appreciate the different aspects of
Islamic polity without fully understanding these three principles. I will therefore begin with a
brief exposition of what they are.
Tawhid means that only Allah is the Creator, Sustainer and Master of the universe and of all
that exists in it, organic or inorganic. The sovereignty of this kingdom is vested only in Him. He
alone has the right to command or forbid. Worship and obedience are due to Him alone, no
one and nothing else shares it in any way. Life, in all its forms, our physical organs and faculties,
the apparent control which we have over nearly everything in our lives and the things them-
selves, none of them has been created or acquired by us in our own right. They have been be-
stowed on us entirely by Allah. Hence, it is not for us to decide the aim and purpose of our ex-
istence or to set the limits of our authority; nor is anyone else entitled to make these decisions
for us. This right rests only with Allah, who has created us, endowed us with mental and physi-
cal faculties, and provided material things for our use. Tawhid means that only Allah is the Crea-
tor, Sustainer and Master of the universe and of all that exists in it, organic or inorganic. The
sovereignty of this kingdom is vested only in Him. He alone has the right to command or forbid.
Worship and obedience are due to Him alone, no one and nothing else shares it in any way.
Life, in all its forms, our physical organs and faculties, the apparent control which we have over
nearly everything in our lives and the things themselves, none of them has been created or ac-
quired by us in our own right. They have been bestowed on us entirely by Allah. Hence, it is not
for us to decide the aim and purpose of our existence or to set the limits of our authority; nor is
anyone else entitled to make these decisions for us. This right rests only with Allah, who has
created us, endowed us with mental and physical faculties, and provided material things for our
use. Tawhid means that only Allah is the Creator, Sustainer and Master of the universe and of
all that exists in it, organic or inorganic. The sovereignty of this kingdom is vested only in Him.
He alone has the right to command or forbid. Worship and obedience are due to Him alone, no
one and nothing else shares it in any way. Life, in all its forms, our physical organs and faculties,
the apparent control which we have over nearly everything in our lives and the things them-
selves, none of them has been created or acquired by us in our own right. They have been be-
stowed on us entirely by Allah. Hence, it is not for us to decide the aim and purpose of our ex-
istence or to set the limits of our authority; nor is anyone else entitled to make these decisions
for us. This right rests only with Allah, who has created us, endowed us with mental and physi-
cal faculties, and provided material things for our use.
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This principle of the unity of Allah totally negates the concept of the legal and political inde-
pendence of human beings, individually or collectively. No individual, family, class or race can
set themselves above Allah. Allah alone is the Ruler and His commandments are the Law.
The medium through which we receive the law of Allah is known as Risalat. We have received
two things from this source: the Book in which Allah has set out His law, and the authoritative
interpretation and exemplification of the Book by the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him
through word and deed, in his capacity as the representative of Allah. The Prophet, blessings
and peace be on him, has also, in accordance with the intention of the Divine Book, given us a
model for the Islamic way of life by himself implementing the law and providing necessary de-
tails where required. The combination of these two elements is called the Shari ‘ah.
Now consider Khilafat. According to the Arabic lexicon, it means ‘representation’. Man, accord-
ing to Islam, is the representative of Allah on earth, His vicegerent. That is to say, by virtue of
the powers delegated to him by Allah, he is required to exercise his Allah-given authority in this
world within the limits prescribed by Allah.
Take, for example, the case of an estate which someone has been appointed to administer on
your behalf. You will see that four conditions are invariably met. First, the real ownership of the
estate remains vested in you and not in the administrator; second, he administers your proper-
ty only in accordance with your instructions; third, he exercises his authority within the limits
prescribed by you; and fourth, in the administration of the trust he executes your will and not
his own. These four conditions are so inherent in the concept of ‘representation’ that if any
representative fails to observe them he will rightly be blamed for breaking the covenant which
was implied in the concept of ‘representation’. This is exactly what Islam means when it affirms
that man is the vicegerent of Allah on earth. Hence, these four conditions are also involved in
the concept of Khilafat.
A state that is established in accordance with this political theory will in fact be a human cali-
phate under the sovereignty of Allah and will do Allah’s will by working within the limits pre-
scribed by Him and in accordance with His instructions and injunctions.
This is a new and revised translation of a talk given by the author on Radio Pakistan, Lahore, on 20th January, 1948.
Democracy in Islam
The above explanation of the term Khilafat also makes it abundantly clear that no individual or
dynasty or class can be Khilafah, but that the authority of caliphate is bestowed on any com-
munity which accepts the principles of Tawhid and Risalat. In such a society, each individual
shares the Allah-given caliphate. This is the point where democracy begins in Islam.
Every person in an Islamic society enjoys the rights and powers of the caliphate of Allah and in
this respect all individuals are equal. No one can deprive anyone of his rights and powers. The
agency for running the affairs of the state will be established in accordance with the will of the-
Page 103 of 136

se individuals, and the authority of the state will only be an extension of the powers of the indi-
vidual delegated to it. Their opinion will be decisive in the formation of the Government, which
will be run with their advice and in accordance with their wishes. Whoever gains their confi-
dence will carry out the duties of the caliphate on their behalf; and when he loses this confi-
dence he will have to relinquish his office. In this respect the political system in Islam is as per-
fect a democracy as ever can be.
What distinguishes Islamic democracy from Western democracy is that while the latter is based
on the concept of popular sovereignty the former rests on the principle of popular Khilafat. In
Western democracy the people are sovereign, in Islam sovereignty is vested in Allah and the
people are His caliphs or representatives. In the former the people make their own laws; in the
latter they have to follow and obey the laws (Shari‘ah) given by Allah through His Prophet. In
one the Government undertakes to fulfil the will of the people; in the other Government and
the people alike have to do the will of Allah. Western democracy is a kind of absolute authority
which exercises its powers in a free and uncontrolled manner, whereas Islamic democracy is
subservient to the Divine Law and exercises its authority in accordance with the injunctions of
Allah and within the limits prescribed by Him.
Purpose of the Islamic State
The Holy Qur’an clearly states that the aim and purpose of this state, built on the foundation of
Tawhid, Risalat and Khilafat, is the establishment, maintenance and development of those vir-
tues which the Creator of the universe wishes human life to be enriched by, and the prevention
and eradication of those evils which are abhorrent to Allah. The state in Islam is not intended
for political administration only nor for the fulfilment through it of the collective will of any par-
ticular set of people. Rather, Islam places a high ideal before the state for the achievement of
which it must use all the means at its disposal. The aim is to encourage the qualities of purity,
beauty, goodness, virtue, success and prosperity which Allah wants to flourish in the life of His
people and to suppress all kinds of exploitation and injustice. As well as placing before us this
high ideal, Islam clearly states the desired virtues and the undesirable evils. The Islamic state
can thus plan its welfare programmes in every age and in any environment.
The constant demand made by Islam is that the principles of morality must be observed at all
costs and in all walks of life. Hence, it lays down an unalterable requirement for the state to
base its politics on justice, truth and honesty. It is not prepared, under any circumstances, to
tolerate fraud, falsehood and injustice for the sake of political, administrative or national expe-
diency. Whether it be relations between the rulers and the ruled within the state, or relations
of the state with other states, precedence must always be given to truth, honesty and justice. It
imposes obligations on the state similar to those it imposes on the individual: to fulfil all con-
tracts and obligations; to have consistent standards in all dealings; to remember obligations as
well as rights and not to forget the rights of others when expecting them to fulfil their obliga-
tions; to use power and authority for the establishment for justice and not for the perpetration
of injustice; to look on duty as a sacred obligation; and to regard power as a trust from Allah to
be used in the belief that one has to render an account of one’s actions to Him in the Hereafter.
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Fundamental Rights
Although an Islamic state may be set up anywhere on earth, Islam does not seek to restrict hu-
man rights or privileges to the geographical limits of its own state. Islam has laid down universal
fundamental rights for humanity as a whole, which are to be observed and respected in all cir-
cumstances irrespective of whether a person lives on the territory of the Islamic state or out-
side it and whether he is at peace with the state or at war. For example, human blood is sacred
and may not be spilled without justification; it is not permissible to oppress women, children,
old people, the sick or the wounded; woman’s honour and chastity must be respected in all cir-
cumstances; and the hungry must be fed, the naked clothed, and the wounded or diseased
treated medically.
These, and a few other provisions, have been laid down by Islam as fundamental rights for eve-
ry man by virtue of his status as a human being, to be enjoyed under the constitution of an Is-
lamic state.
The rights of citizenship in Islam, however, are not confined to persons born within the limits of
its state but are granted to every Muslim irrespective of his place of birth. A Muslim ipso facto
becomes the citizen of an Islamic state as soon as he sets foot on its territory with the intention
of living there; he thus enjoys equal rights of citizenship with those who are its citizens by birth.
Citizenship must therefore be common to all the citizens of all the Islamic states that exist in
the world; a Muslim will not need a passport for entry or exit from any of them. And every Mus-
lim must be regarded as eligible for positions of the highest responsibility in an Islamic state
without distinction of race, colour or class.
Islam has also laid down certain rights for non-Muslims who may be living within the bounda-
ries of an Islamic state, and these rights must necessarily form part of the Islamic constitution.
According to Islamic terminology such non-Muslims are called dhimmis (the covenanted), im-
plying that the Islamic state has entered into a covenant with them and guaranteed their rights.
The life, property and honour of a dhimmi is to be respected and protected in exactly the same
way as that of a Muslim citizen. There is no difference between Muslim and non-Muslim citi-
zens in respect of civil or criminal law; and the Islamic state shall not interfere with the personal
law of non-Muslims. They will have full freedom of conscience and belief and will be entitled to
perform their religious rites and ceremonies. As well as being able to practise their religion,
they are entitled to criticise Islam. However the rights given in this respect are not unlimited:
the civil law of the country has to be fully respected and all criticism has to be made within its
framework.
These rights are irrevocable and non-Muslims can only be deprived of them if they renounce
the convenant which grants them citizenship. However much a non-Muslim state may oppress
its Muslim citizens, it is not permissible for an Islamic state to retaliate against its non-Muslim
subjects. This injunction holds good even if all the Muslims outside the boundaries of an Islamic
state are massacred.
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Executive and Legislature
The responsibility for the administration of the Government in an Islamic state is entrusted to
an Amir (leader) who may be likened to the President or the Prime Minister in a Western dem-
ocratic state. All adult men and women who accept the fundamentals of the constitution are
entitled to vote in the election for the leader.
The basic qualifications for the election of an Amir are that he should command the confidence
of the largest number of people in respect of his knowledge and grasp of the spirit of Islam; he
should possess the Islamic attribute of fear of Allah; he should be endowed with the quality of
statesmanship. In short, he should be both able and virtuous.
A Shura (consultative council), elected by the people, will assist and guide the Amir. It is obliga-
tory for the Amir to administer the country with the advice of his Shura. The Amir can retain
office only so long as he enjoys the confidence of the people, and must resign when he loses
this confidence. Every citizen has the right to criticise the Amir and his Government, and all re-
sponsible means for the expression of public opinion should be available.
Legislation in an Islamic state should be within the limits prescribed by the Shari‘ah. The injunc-
tions of Allah and His Prophet are to be accepted and obeyed and no legislative body can alter
or modify them or make any new laws which are contrary to their spirit. The duty of ascertain-
ing the real intent of those commandments which are open to more than one interpretation
should devolve on people possessing a specialised knowledge of the law of Shari‘ah. Hence,
such matters may have to be referred to a sub-committee of the Shã r~ comprising men
learned in Islamic law. Great scope would still be available for legislation on questions not cov-
ered by any specific injunctions of the Shari‘ah, and the advisory council or legislature is free to
legislate in regard to these matters.
In Islam the judiciary is not placed under the control of the executive. It derives its authority
directly from the Shari‘ah and is answerable to Allah. The judges will obviously be appointed by
the Government but, once appointed, will have to administer justice impartially according to
the law of Allah. All the organs and functionaries of the Government should come within their
jurisdiction: even the highest executive authority of the Government will be liable to be called
upon to appear in a court of law as a plaintiff or defendant. Rulers and ruled are subject to the
same law and there can be no discrimination on the basis of position, power or privilege. Islam
stands for equality and scrupulously adheres to this principle in the social, economic and politi-
cal realms alike.
This page is taken from http://www.jamaat.org
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Islamic Political System
Source: http://www.ediscoverislam.com/islamic-law-and-legal-systems/islamic-political-system
The political system of Islam has been based on three principles, viz., Tawheed (Oneness of
God), Risalat (Prophethood) and Khilafat (Caliphate). It is difficult to appreciate the different
aspects of the Islamic policy without fully understanding these three principles. I will, therefore,
begin with a brief exposition of them. Tawheed (Oneness) means that one God alone is the
Creator, Sustainer and Master of this universe and of all that exists in it organic or inorganic.
The sovereignty of this kingdom rests only in Him. He alone has the right to command or forbid
Worship and obedience are due to Him alone, none else sharing it in any degree or form. Life,
in all its multifarious forms, our physical organs and faculties, the apparent control which we
have over everything that exists in this universe, and the things themselves none of them has
been created or acquired by us in our own right. They are the bountiful provisions of god and in
bestowing them upon us, no one is as Him. Hence, it is neither for us to decide the aim and
purpose of our existence or to prescribe the limits in our worldly authority nor is anyone else
entitled to make these decisions for us. This right vest only in God Who has created us en-
dowed us with mental and physical faculties, and provided all material provisions for our use.
This principle of the Oneness of God altogether negates the concept of the legal and political
sovereignty of human begins, individually or collectively. Nothing can claim sovereignty, be it a
human being, a family, a class or group of people, or even the human race in the world as a
whole. God alone is the Sovereign and His Commandments are the Law of Islam.
The medium through which we receive the Law of God is known as "Risalat" (Prophet hood). We have
received two things from this source:
The Book in which God has expounded His Law; and The authoritative interpretation and exemplification
of the Book of God by the Prophet, through his word and deed, in his capacity as the last messenger of
God.
The broad principles on which the system of human life should be based have been stated in the Book of
God.
Further, the Prophet of God has, in accordance with the intention of the Divine Book, set up for
us a model of the system of life in Islam by practically implementing the law and providing nec-
essary details where required. The combination of these two elements, according to Islamic
terminology, is called the "Shari'ah". There is a specific purpose for man's existence. This pur-
pose is achieved when man fulfills his function and is missed when man fads to live up to his
designated role. In that case, his life will be barren and devoid of any original meaning. Total
loss and perdition await everyone who fails to respond to Allah's call.
This special role relating man to his Creator is subservience to Allah and worship of Him. All as-
pects of man's life are based on this consideration. Thus, the meaning of worship must be ex-
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tended to go beyond mere rituals into all activities since Allah does not only call upon us to per-
form rituals but His injunctions regulate all aspects of life. The Qur’an develops this theme:
"Behold, thy Lord said to the angels: 'I will create a vicegerent on earth'…" (Quran 2:30)
It is this Khilafat (Caliphate) on earth which encompasses the range of activities of this human
being. It consists in settlement on earth, exploration of its resources and energies, fulfillment of
Allah's purpose of making full use of its resources and developing life on it. In brief this task re-
quires the implementation of Allah’s way which is in harmony with the Divine Law governing
the whole universe.
Thus, it becomes clear that the meaning of worship, which is the very purpose of man's exist-
ence and his primary function, is much more comprehensive than mere rituals. The role of Khil-
afat (Caliphate) is definitely an integral part of meaning of worship. The truth about worship
comes out in two essential points, namely:
1) There should be a feeling of absolute certainty and conviction about the meaning of worship
of Allah in one's heart; a feeling that the only possible relationship which holds is one of creator
and the created and nothing but that.
2) It is imperative to turn to Allah dedicating to Him every stir of one's conscience, every flutter-
ing of the senses, every movement of life. This dedication should be channeled solely to Him
and nobody else. No other feeling should have any room left, except in so far as it is construed
as part of the meaning of worship of Allah. In this way the meaning of worship is fulfilled. Thus,
work becomes one with rituals; rituals one with settlement on earth; settlement on earth like
strive for Allah's cause; strive in the way of Allah like patience in bearing calamities contentedly
in the knowledge that they are part of Allah's plan; all these are instances of worship of Allah.
With this healthy frame of mind, based on the right understanding on man's role in this uni-
verse, man becomes ready to implement Allah's teaching, as communicated through the mes-
sage of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
This is exactly what Islam means when it lays down that man is Khalifah (servant) of God on the
earth. The state that is established in accordance with this political theory will have to fulfill the
purpose and intent of God by working on God's earth within the limits prescribed by Him and in
conformity with His instructions and injunctions.
PURPOSE OF THE ISLAMIC STATE
I shall now place before you a brief outline of the type of state which is built on the foundation
of Tawheed (the Oneness of God), "Risalat" (the Prophethood of Muhammad) and "Khilafat"
(the Caliphate).
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The Holy Quran clearly states that the aim and purpose of this state is the establishment,
maintenance and development of those virtues, with which the Creator of this universe wishes
the human life to be adorned and the prevention and eradication of those evils the presence of
which in human life is utterly abhorrent to God. The state in Islam is not intended for political
administration only nor for the fulfillment through it of the collective will of any particular set of
people; rather, Islam places a high ideal before the state for the achievement of which, it must
use all the means at its disposal. And this purpose is that the qualities of purity, beauty, good-
ness, virtue, success and prosperity which God wants to flourish in the life of His people, should
be engendered and evolved. And that all kinds exploitation, injustice and disorders which, in he
view of God, are ruinous for the world and detrimental to the life of His creatures are sup-
pressed and prevented. Simultaneously, by placing before us this high ideal, Islam gives us a
clear outline of its moral system clearly stating the desired virtues and the undesirable evils.
Keeping this outline in view the Islamic state can plan its welfare program in every age and in
any environment.
The persistent demand made by Islam is that the principles or moral in must be observed at all
cost and in all walks of life. Hence it lays down an unalterable policy for the state to base its pol-
itics on justice, truth and honesty. It is not prepared, under any circumstance whatsoever, to
tolerate fraud, falsehood and injustice for the sake of any political, administrative or national
expediency. Whether it be the mutual relations of the rulers and the ruled within the state, or
the relations of the state with other states, precedence must always be given to truth, honesty,
and justice over material consideration. It imposes similar obligations on the state as on the in-
dividual. Viz., to fulfill all contracts and obligations, to have uniform measures and standards for
dealings, to remember duties along with the rights and not to forget the rights of other when
expecting them to fulfill their obligations; to use power and authority for the establishment of
justice and not for the perpetration of injustice; to look upon duty as a sacred obligation and to
fulfill it scrupulously; and to regard power as a trust from God and use it with the belief that
one has to render an account of one's actions to Him in the Hereafter.
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS
Although an Islamic state may be set up in any portion of the earth, Islam does not seek to re-
strict human rights or privileges to the geographical limits of its own state. Islam has laid down
some universal fundamental rights for humanity as a whole, which are to be observed and re-
spected under all circumstances whether such a person is resident within the territory of the
Islamic state or outside it, whether he is at peace with the state or at war. Human blood is sa-
cred in any case and cannot be spilled without justification. Its is not permissible to oppress
women, children, old people, sick persons or the wounded. Woman's honor and chastity are
worthy of respect under all circumstances. The hungry person must be fed, the naked clothed,
and the wounded treated medically irrespective of whether they belong to the Islamic commu-
nity or not or even if they are from amongst its enemies. These, and a few other provisions
have been laid by Islam fundamental rights for every man by virtue of his status as a human be-
ing to be enjoyed under the constitution of an Islamic state. Even the rights of citizenship in Is-
lam are not confined to persons born within the limits of its state but are granted to every Mus-
Page 109 of 136

lim irrespective of his place of birth. A Muslim ipso facto becomes the citizen of an Islamic state
as soon as he sets his foot on its territory with the intent to live therein and thus enjoys equal
rights of citizenship along with those who acquire its citizenship by birthright. Citizenship has
therefore, to be common among all the Islamic states that may exist in the world and a Muslim
will not need any passport for entry in or exit from any of them. And every Muslim is to be re-
garded as eligible and fit for all positions of the highest responsibility in an Islamic State without
any discussions of race color or class. Islam has also laid down certain rights for the non-
Muslims who may be living within the boundaries of an Islamic State and these rights must
necessarily from part of the Islamic Constitution.
According to the Islamic terminology such non-Muslims are Dhimmee (the covenant). implying
that the Islamic state has entered into a covenant with them and guaranteed their protection.
The life, property and protected exactly life that of a Muslim citizen. There is no difference at all
between a Muslim and Dhimmee in respect of the civil or criminal law. The Islamic State shall
not interfere with the personal law of the Dhimmme. They will have full freedom of conscience
and belief.
EXECUTIVE AND LEGISLATIVE
The responsibility for the administration of the Government, in an Islamic state, is entrusted to
an Amir (leader or chief) who may be likened to the President or the Prime Minister in the con-
ventional democratic state.
The basic qualifications for the election of an Amir are that he should command the confidence
of the ABLUL HAL WAL'AQD [The Constitutional Body).
They are recruited from among the scholars (of Islam), leaders, and notables who effectively
have the duty to carry out this task of appointing the ruler. In this, they do not act on their own
personal preferences, but on behalf of the whole nation, being as they are, its representatives.
Three conditions must be met for eligibility to membership of this body, namely:
Moral credit (piety and moral standards).
To be well versed in religion so as to be in a position to decide upon who deserves the position of Amir.
Good and sound judgment leading to a sharp perception of who is most suitable for the role of Amir.
The Amir can retain office only so long as he observes Allah's Shari'ah laws. Being himself the
primary example of it both in his dealings and conduct, honoring his commitments and being
true to his trust; in brief, he should conform to the conditions originally stipulated upon his
holding office and will have to vacate his office when he loses this confidence. But as long as he
retains such confidence he will have the authority to govern and exercise the powers of the
Government, of course, in consultation with the Shura (the advisory council) and within the lim-
its set by a Shari’ah. Every citizen will have the right to criticize the Amir should he deviate from
the straight path, fail to honor the trust laid in him, transgress and tyrannize over people,
Page 110 of 136

change his conduct for the worst, freeze the implementation of Allah's penal code, or flouts Al-
lah's regulations in anyway. If he fails to live up to one of the conditions stipulated for his eligi-
bility to the office, the nation has the right to overrule his judgment either by correcting him or
by deposing them.
Legislation in an Islamic state will be restricted within the limits prescribed by the law of the
Shari'ah. The injunctions of God and His legislative body can make any alterations or modifica-
tions in them or make any law repugnant to them. As for the commandments which are liable
to two or more interpretations the duty of ascertaining the real intent of the Shari'ah, in such
cases, will devolve on people possessing a specialized knowledge of the law of Shari'ah. Hence,
such affairs will have to be referred to a sub committee of the advisory council compressing
men learned in Islamic Law. A vast field will still be available for legislation on questions not
covered by any specific injunctions of the Shari'ah and the advisory council or legislature will be
free to legislate in regard to these matters.
In Islam the judiciary is not placed under the control of the executive. It derives its authority
directly from the Shari'ah and is answerable to God. The judges, no doubt can be appointed by
the Government but once a judge has occupied the bench he will have to administer justice
among the people according to the law of God in an impartial manner. The organs and func-
tionaries of the Government will not be outside his legal jurisdiction much so that even the
highest executive authority of the Government is liable to be called upon to appear in a court of
law as a plaintiff or defendant like any other citizen of the state. Rulers and the ruled are sub-
ject to the same law and there can be no discrimination on the basis of position, power or privi-
lege. Islam stands for equality and scrupulously sticks to this principle in social, economic and
political realms alike.
Page 111 of 136

Political Aspects of Islam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_aspects_of_Islam
Political aspects of Islam are derived from the Qur'an, the Sunna (the sayings and living habits
of Muhammad), Muslim history, and elements of political movements outside Islam.
Traditional political concepts in Islam include leadership by elected or selected successors to

the Prophet known as Caliphs, (Imamate for Shia); the importance of following Islamic law or
Sharia; the duty of rulers to seek Shura or consultation from their subjects; and the importance
of rebuking unjust rulers.[1]
A significant change in the Islamic world was the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924.[2]
In the 19th and 20th century, common Islamic political theme has been resistance to Western
imperialism and enforcement of Sharia through democratic or militant struggle. The defeat of
Arab armies in the Six Day War, the end of Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union with the
end of communism as a viable alternative has increased the appeal of Islamic movements such
as Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic democracy, especially in the context of popu-
lar dissatisfaction with secularist ruling regimes in the Muslim world.
Contents
 1 Introduction
o 1.1 Islamic State of Medina
o 1.2 Early Caliphate and political ideals
 1.2.1 Election or appointment
 1.2.2 Majlis ash-Shura
 1.2.3 Separation of powers
 1.2.4 Accountability
 1.2.5 Rule of law
o 1.3 Obedience and opposition
o 1.4 Shi'a tradition
 2 Modern era
o 2.1 Reaction to European colonialism
o 2.2 Modern political ideal of the Islamic state
o 2.3 20th and 21st century
 2.3.1 Contemporary movements
 2.3.2 Sunni and Shia differences
 3 See also
 4 References
 5 Sources
o 5.1 Further reading
 6 External links
Page 112 of 136

Introduction
Origins of Islam as a political movement are to be found in the life and times of Islam's prophet
Muhammad and his successors. In 622 CE, in recognition of his claims to prophethood, Mu-
hammad was invited to rule the city of Medina. At the time the local Arab tribes of Aus and
Khazraj dominated the city, and were in constant conflict. Medinans saw in Muhammad an im-
partial outsider who could resolve the conflict. Muhammad and his followers thus moved to
Medina, where Muhammad drafted the Medina Charter. This document made Muhammad the
ruler, and recognized him as the Prophet of Allah. The laws Muhammad established during his
rule, based on the revelations of the Quran and doing of Muhammad, are considered by Mus-
lims to be Sharia or Islamic law, which Islamic movements seek to establish in the present day.
Muhammad gained a widespread following and an army, and his rule expanded first to the city
of Mecca and then spread through the Arabian peninsula through a combination of diplomacy
and military conquest.
Today many Islamist or Islamic democratic parties exist in almost every democracy with a Mus-
lim majority. Many militant Islamic groups are also working in different parts of world. The con-
troversial term Islamic fundamentalism has also been coined by some non-Muslims to describe
the political and religious philosophies of some militant Islamic groups. Both of these terms
(Islamic democracy and Islamic fundamentalism) lump together a large variety of groups with
varying histories, ideologies and contexts.
Islamic State of Medina
The Constitution of Medina was drafted by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It constituted a
formal agreement between Muhammad and all of the significant tribes and families of Yathrib
(later known as Medina), including Muslims, Jews, Christians[3] and Pagans.[4][5] This constitution
formed the basis of the first Islamic state. The document was drawn up with the explicit con-
cern of bringing to an end the bitter intertribal fighting between the clans of the Aws (Aus) and
Khazraj within Medina. To this effect it instituted a number of rights and responsibilities for the
Muslim, Jewish, Christian and Pagan communities of Medina bringing them within the fold of
one community—the Ummah.[6]
The precise dating of the Constitution of Medina remains debated but generally scholars agree
it was written shortly after the Hijra (622).[7] It effectively established the first Islamic state. The
Constitution established: the security of the community, religious freedoms, the role of Medina
as a haram or sacred place (barring all violence and weapons), the security of women, stable
tribal relations within Medina, a tax system for supporting the community in time of conflict,
parameters for exogenous political alliances, a system for granting protection of individuals, a
judicial system for resolving disputes, and also regulated the paying of blood money (the pay-
ment between families or tribes for the slaying of an individual in lieu of lex talionis).
Early Caliphate and political ideals

See also: Caliphate and Islamic ethics
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After death of Muhammad, his community needed to appoint a new leader, giving rise to the
title Caliph, meaning "successor". Thus the subsequent Islamic empires were known as Cali-
phates. Alongside the growth of the Umayyad empire, the major political development within
Islam in this period was the sectarian split between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims; this had its
roots in a dispute over the succession of the Caliphate. Sunni Muslims believed the caliphate
was elective, and any Muslim might serve as one. Shi'ites, on the other hand, believed the cali-
phate should be hereditary in the line of the Prophet, and thus all the caliphs, with the excep-
tion of Ali, were usurpers.[8] However, the Sunni sect emerged as triumphant in most of the
Muslim world, and thus most modern Islamic political movements (with the exception of Iran)
are founded in Sunni thought.
Muhammad's closest companions, the four "rightly guided" Caliphs who succeeded him, con-
tinued to expand the state to encompass Jerusalem, Ctesiphon, and Damascus, and sending
armies as far as the Sindh.[9] The Islamic empire stretched from Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) to
the Punjab under the reign of the Umayyad dynasty. The conquering Arab armies took the sys-
tem of Sharia laws and courts to their new military camps and cities, and built mosques for Fri-
day jam'at (community prayers) as well as Madrasahs to educate local Muslim youth. These in-
stitutions resulted in the development of a class of ulema (classical Islamic scholars) who could
serve as qadis (Sharia-court judges), imams of mosques and madrasah teachers. These classical
scholars - who lived and earned their livelihoods in the expansionist Islamic empire - gave legal
and religious sanction to militarist interpretations of jihad. The political terminology of the Is-
lamic state was all the product of this period. Thus, medieval legal terms such as khalifa, sharia,
fiqh, maddhab, jizya, and dhimmi all remain part of modern Islamic vocabulary.
Since the scholarly and legal traditions of the ulema were well-established by the time of the
Abbasids, the later Middle Eastern empires and kingdoms (including the Ayyubid, Seljuk, Fati-
mid, Mamluk and Mongol) had little impact on modern Islamist political ideals.
An important Islamic concept concerning the structure of ruling is shura, or consultation with
people regarding their affairs, which is the duty of rulers mentioned in two verses in the Quran,
3:153, and 42:36.[10]
One type of ruler not part of the Islamic ideal was the king, which was disparaged in Quran's
mentions of the Pharaoh, "the prototype of the unjust and tyrannical ruler" (18:70, 79) and
elsewhere. (28:34)[11]
Election or appointment
See also: Islamic democracy
The concepts of liberalism and democratic participation were already present in the medieval
Islamic world.[12][13][14] Rashidun Caliphate was an early example of a democratic state but the
development of democracy in the Islamic world eventually came to a halt following to the Sun-
ni–Shia split.[15]
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Al-Mawardi, a Muslim jurist of the Shafii school, has written that the caliph should be Qurayshi.
Abu Bakr Al-Baqillani, an Ashari Islamic scholar and Maliki lawyer, wrote that the leader of the
Muslims simply should be from the majority. Abu Hanifa an-Nu‘man, the founder of the Sunni
Hanafi school of fiqh, also wrote that the leader must come from the majority.[16] Western
scholar of Islam, Fred Donner,[17] argues that the standard Arabian practice during the early Ca-
liphates was for the prominent men of a kinship group, or tribe, to gather after a leader's death
and elect a leader from amongst themselves, although there was no specified procedure for
this shura, or consultative assembly. Candidates were usually from the same lineage as the de-
ceased leader but they were not necessarily his sons. Capable men who would lead well were
preferred over an ineffectual direct heir, as there was no basis in the majority Sunni view that
the head of state or governor should be chosen based on lineage alone.
Majlis ash-Shura
Deliberations of the Caliphates, most notably Rashidun Caliphate were not democratic in the
modern sense rather, decision-making power lay with a council of notable and trusted compan-
ions of Mohammad and representatives of different tribes (most of them selected or elected
within their tribes).[18] (see also: Shura).
Traditional Sunni Islamic lawyers agree that shura, loosely translated as 'consultation of the
people', is a function of the caliphate. The Majlis ash-Shura advise the caliph. The importance of
this is premised by the following verses of the Quran:
"...those who answer the call of their Lord and establish the prayer, and who conduct their af-
fairs by Shura. [are loved by God]"[42:38]
"...consult them (the people) in their affairs. Then when you have taken a decision (from them),
put your trust in Allah"[3:159]
The majlis is also the means to elect a new caliph. Al-Mawardi has written that members of the
majlis should satisfy three conditions: they must be just, they must have enough knowledge to
distinguish a good caliph from a bad one, and must have sufficient wisdom and judgment to
select the best caliph. Al-Mawardi also said in emergencies when there is no caliphate and no
majlis, the people themselves should create a majlis, select a list of candidates for caliph, then
the majlis should select from the list of candidates.[16] Some modern interpretations of the role
of the Majlis ash-Shura include those by Islamist author Sayyid Qutb and by Taqiuddin al-
Nabhani, the founder of a transnational political movement devoted to the revival of the Cali-
phate. In an analysis of the shura chapter of the Quran, Qutb argued Islam requires only that
the ruler consult with at least some of the ruled (usually the elite), within the general context of
God-made laws that the ruler must execute. Taqiuddin al-Nabhani, writes that Shura is im-
portant and part of "the ruling structure" of the Islamic caliphate, "but not one of its pillars,"
and may be neglected without the Caliphate's rule becoming un-Islamic. However, These inter-
pretations of Shura (by Qutb and al-Nabhani) are not universally accepted and Islamic demo-
crats consider Shura to be an integral part and important pillar of Islamic political system.
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Non-Muslims may serve as members of majlis (council) of Shura, but they can not become can-
didates for position of head of Islamic state.
Separation of powers
See also: Ulema, Islamic ethics and Islam and secularism
Unlike Christianity, Islam does not separate religion from state, and many Muslims argue it is
apolitical Islam not political Islam that requires explanation and that is an historical fluke of the
"shortlived heyday of secular Arab nationalism between 1945 and 1970."[19]
In the early Islamic Caliphate, the head of state, the Caliph, had a position based on the notion
of a successor to Muhammad's political authority, who, according to Sunnis, were ideally elect-
ed by the people or their representatives,[20] as was the case for the election of Abu Bakar,
Uthman and Ali as Caliph. After the Rashidun Caliphs, later Caliphates during the Islamic Golden
Age had a much lesser degree of democratic participation, but since "no one was superior to
anyone else except on the basis of piety and virtue" in Islam, and following the example of Mu-
hammad, later Islamic rulers often held public consultations with the people in their affairs.[21]
The legislative power of the Caliph (or later, the Sultan) was always restricted by the scholarly
class, the Ulema, a group regarded as the guardians of the law. Since the law came from the
legal scholars, this prevented the Caliph from dictating legal results. Laws were decided based
on the Ijma (consensus) of the Ummah (community), which was most often represented by the
legal scholars.[22] In order to qualify as a legal scholar, it was required that they obtain a doctor-
ate known as the ijazat attadris wa 'l-ifttd ("license to teach and issue legal opinions") from a
Madrasah.[23] In many ways, classical Islamic law functioned like a constitutional law.[22]
Practically, for hundreds of years after Rashidun Caliphate and until the twentieth century, Is-
lamic states followed a system of government based on the coexistence of sultan and ulama
following the rules of the sharia. This system resembled to some extent some Western gov-
ernments in possessing an unwritten constitution (like the United Kingdom), and possessing
separate, countervailing branches of government (like the United States) — which provided
Separation of powers in governance. While the United States (and some other systems of gov-
ernment) has three branches of government — executive, legislative and judicial — Islamic
monarchies had two — the sultan and ulama.[24]
According to Olivier Roy this "defacto separation between political power" of sultans and emirs
and religious power of the caliph was "created and institutionalized ... as early as the end of the
first century of the hegira." The sovereign's religious function was to defend the Muslim com-
munity against its enemies, institute the sharia, ensure the public good (maslaha). The state
was instrument to enable Muslims to live as good Muslims and Muslims were to obey the sul-
tan if he did so. The legitimacy of the ruler was "symbolized by the right to coin money and to
have the Friday prayer (Jumu'ah khutba) said in his name."[25]
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Accountability
Sunni Islamic lawyers have commented on when it is permissible to disobey, impeach or re-
move rulers in the Caliphate. This is usually when the rulers are not meeting public responsibili-
ties obliged upon them under Islam. Al-Mawardi said that if the rulers meet their Islamic re-
sponsibilities to the public, the people must obey their laws, but if they become either unjust or
severely ineffective then the Caliph or ruler must be impeached via the Majlis ash-Shura. Simi-
larly Al-Baghdadi believed that if the rulers do not uphold justice, the ummah via the majlis
should give warning to them, and if unheeded then the Caliph can be impeached. Al-Juwayni
argued that Islam is the goal of the ummah, so any ruler that deviates from this goal must be
impeached. Al-Ghazali believed that oppression by a caliph is enough for impeachment. Rather
than just relying on impeachment, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani obliged rebellion upon the people if the
caliph began to act with no regard for Islamic law. Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani said that to ignore such
a situation is haraam, and those who cannot revolt inside the caliphate should launch a struggle
from outside. Al-Asqalani used two ayahs from the Qur'an to justify this:
"...And they (the sinners on qiyama) will say, 'Our Lord! We obeyed our leaders and our chiefs,
and they misled us from the right path. Our Lord! Give them (the leaders) double the punish-
ment you give us and curse them with a very great curse'..."[33:67–68]
Islamic lawyers commented that when the rulers refuse to step down via successful impeach-
ment through the Majlis, becoming dictators through the support of a corrupt army, if the ma-
jority agree they have the option to launch a revolution against them. Many noted that this op-
tion is only exercised after factoring in the potential cost of life.[16]
Rule of law
The following hadith establishes the principle of rule of law in relation to nepotism and ac-
countability[26]
Narrated ‘Aisha: The people of Quraish worried about the lady from Bani Makhzum who had
committed theft. They asked, "Who will intercede for her with Allah's Apostle?" Some said, "No
one dare to do so except Usama bin Zaid the beloved one to Allah's Apostle." When Usama
spoke about that to Allah's Apostle Allah's Apostle said: "Do you try to intercede for somebody
in a case connected with Allah’s Prescribed Punishments?" Then he got up and delivered a ser-
mon saying, "What destroyed the nations preceding you, was that if a noble amongst them
stole, they would forgive him, and if a poor person amongst them stole, they would inflict Al-
lah's Legal punishment on him. By Allah, if Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad (my daughter)
stole, I would cut off her hand."
Various Islamic lawyers do however place multiple conditions, and stipulations e.g. the poor
cannot be penalised for stealing out of poverty, before executing such a law, making it very dif-
ficult to reach such a stage. It is well known during a time of drought in the Rashidun caliphate
period, capital punishments were suspended until the effects of the drought passed.
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Islamic jurists later formulated the concept of the rule of law, the equal subjection of all classes
to the ordinary law of the land, where no person is above the law and where officials and pri-
vate citizens are under a duty to obey the same law. A Qadi (Islamic judge) was also not allowed
to discriminate on the grounds of religion, race, colour, kinship or prejudice. There were also a
number of cases where Caliphs had to appear before judges as they prepared to take their ver-
dict.[27]
According to Noah Feldman, a law professor at Harvard University, the legal scholars and jurists
who once upheld the rule of law were replaced by a law governed by the state due to the codi-
fication of Sharia by the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th century:[22]
How the scholars lost their exalted status as keepers of the law is a complex story, but it can be
summed up in the adage that partial reforms are sometimes worse than none at all. In the early
19th century, the Ottoman empire responded to military setbacks with an internal reform
movement. The most important reform was the attempt to codify Shariah. This Westernizing
process, foreign to the Islamic legal tradition, sought to transform Shariah from a body of doc-
trines and principles to be discovered by the human efforts of the scholars into a set of rules
that could be looked up in a book.
Once the law existed in codified form, however, the law itself was able to replace the scholars
as the source of authority. Codification took from the scholars their all-important claim to have
the final say over the content of the law and transferred that power to the state.
Obedience and opposition
According to scholar Moojan Momen, "One of the key statements in the Qur'an around which
much of the exegesis" on the issue of what Islamic doctrine says about who is in charge is based
on the verse
`O believers! Obey God and obey the Apostle and those who have been given authority [uulaa
al-amr] among you`(Qur'an 4:59).
For Sunnis, uulaa al-amr are the rulers (Caliphs and kings) but for Shi'is this expression refers to the
Imams."[28]
According to scholar Bernard Lewis, this Qur'anic verse has been elaborated in a number of say-
ings attributed to Muhammad. But there are also sayings that put strict limits on the duty of
obedience. Two dicta attributed to the Prophet and universally accepted as authentic are indic-
ative. One says, "there is no obedience in sin"; in other words, if the ruler orders something
contrary to the divine law, not only is there no duty of obedience, but there is a duty of disobe-
dience. This is more than the right of revolution that appears in Western political thought. It is a
duty of revolution, or at least of disobedience and opposition to authority. The other pro-
nouncement, "do not obey a creature against his creator," again clearly limits the authority of
the ruler, whatever form of ruler that may be.[29]
Page 118 of 136

However, Ibn Taymiyyah — an important 14th century scholar of the Hanbali school — says in
Tafseer for this verse "there is no obedience in sin"; that people should ignore the order of the
ruler if it would disobey the divine law and shouldn't use this as excuse for revolution because it
will spell Muslims bloods. According to Ibn Taymiyya, the saying, 'Sixty years with an unjust
imam is better than one night without a sultan`, was confirmed by experience. [30]
He believed that the Quranic injunction to "enjoin good and forbid evil" (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-
n-nahy ʿani-l-munkar, found in Quran 3:104 and Quran 3:110 and other verses) was the duty of
every state functionary with charge over other Muslims from the caliph to "the schoolmaster in
charge of assessing children's handwriting exercises."[31][32]
Shi'a tradition
In Shia Islam, three attitudes towards rulers predominated — political cooperation with the rul-
er, political activism challenging the ruler, and aloofness from politics — with "writings of Shi'i
ulama through the ages" showing "elements of all three of these attitudes." [33]
Modern era
Reaction to European colonialism
In the 19th century, European encroachment on the Muslim world came with the retreat of the
Ottoman Empire, the French conquest of Algeria (1830), the disappearance of the Moghul Em-
pire in India (1857), the Russian incursions into the Caucasus (1828) and Central Asia.
The first Muslim reaction to European encroachment was of "peasant and religious", not urban
origin. "Charismatic leaders", generally members of the ulama or leaders of religious orders,
launched the call for jihad and formed tribal coalitions. Sharia in defiance of local common law
was imposed to unify tribes. Examples include Abd al-Qadir in Algeria, the Mahdi in Sudan,
Shamil in the Caucasus, the Senussi in Libya and in Chad, Mullah-i Lang in Afghanistan, the
Akhund of Swat in India, and later, Abd al-Karim in Morocco. All these movements eventually
failed "despite spectacular victories such as the destruction of the British army in Afghanistan in
1842 and the taking of Kharoum in 1885."[34]
The second Muslim reaction to European encroachment later in the century and early 20th cen-
tury was not violent resistance but the adoption of some Western political, social, cultural and
technological ways. Members of the urban elite, particularly in Egypt, Iran, and Turkey advocat-
ed and practiced "Westernization".[22]
The failure of the attempts at political westernization, according to some, was exemplified by
the Tanzimat reorganization of the Ottoman rulers. Sharia was codified into law (which was
called the Mecelle) and an elected legislature was established to make law. These steps took
away the Ulama's role of "discovering" the law and the formerly powerful scholar class weak-
ened and withered into religious functionaries, while the legislature was suspended less than a
year after its inauguration and never recovered to replaced the Ulama as a separate "branch" of
Page 119 of 136

government providing Separation of powers.[22] The "paradigm of the executive as a force un-
checked by either the sharia of the scholars or the popular authority of an elected legislature
became the dominant paradigm in most of the Sunni Muslim world in the twentieth centu-
ry."[35]
Modern political ideal of the Islamic state

See also: Islamism and Islamic state
In addition to the legitimacy given by medieval scholarly opinion, nostalgia for the days of suc-
cessful Islamic empire simmered under later Western colonialism. This nostalgia played a major
role in the Islamist political ideal of Islamic state, a state in which Islamic law is preeminent. [36]
The Islamist political program is generally to be accomplished by re-shaping the governments of
existing Muslim nation-states; but the means of doing this varies greatly across movements and
circumstances. Many democratic Islamist movements, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim
Brotherhood have used the democratic process and focus on votes and coalition-building with
other political parties. Radical movements such as Taliban and al-Qaeda embrace militant Is-
lamic ideology.
20th and 21st century
Following World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, and the subsequent dissolu-
tion of the Caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (founder of Turkey), many Muslims perceived
that the political power of their religion was in retreat. There was also concern that Western
ideas and influence were spreading throughout Muslim societies. This led to considerable re-
sentment of the influence of the European powers. The Muslim Brotherhood was created in
Egypt as a movement to resist and harry the British.
During the 1960s, the predominant ideology within the Arab world was pan-Arabism which
deemphasized religion and emphasized the creation of socialist, secular states based on Arab
nationalism rather than Islam. However, governments based on Arab nationalism have found
themselves facing economic stagnation and disorder. Increasingly, the borders of these states
were seen as artificial colonial creations - which they were, having literally been drawn on a
map by European colonial powers.
Contemporary movements
Some common political currents in Islam include
 Traditionalism, which accepts traditional commentaries on the Quran and Sunna and "takes as
its basic principle imitation (taqlid), that is, refusal to innovate", and follows one of the four legal
schools or Madh'hab (Shaf'i, Maliki, Hanafi, Hanbali) and, may include Sufism. An example of Sufi
traditionalism is the Barelvi school in Pakistan.[37]
 Fundamentalist reformism, which "criticizes the tradition, the commentaries, popular religious
practices (maraboutism, the cult of saints)", deviations, and superstitions; it aims to return to
the founding texts. This reformism generally developed in response to an external threat (the in-
Page 120 of 136

fluence of Hinduism on Islam, for example). 18th-century examples are Shah Wali Allah in India
and Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (who founded Wahhabism) in the Arabian Peninsula.[38]
Salafism is a modern example.
 Islamism or political Islam, embracing a return to the sharia or Islamic principles, but adopting
Western terminology such as revolution, ideology, politics and democracy and taking a more lib-
eral attitude towards issues like Jihad and women's rights.[39] Contemporary examples include
the Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim Brotherhood, Iranian Islamic Revolution, Masyumi party, United
Malays National Organisation, Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and Justice and Development Party
(Turkey).
 Liberal movements within Islam generally define themselves in opposition to Islamic political
movements, but often embrace many of its anti-imperialist and Islam inspired liberal reformist
elements.
Sunni and Shia differences
According to scholar Vali Nasr, political tendencies of Sunni and Shia Islamic ideology differ,
with Sunni Islamic revivalism "in Pakistan and much of the Arab world" being "far from political-
ly revolutionary", while Shia political Islam is strongly influenced by Ruhollah Khomeini and his
talk of the oppression of the poor and class war. Sunni revivalism "is rooted in conservative reli-
gious impulses and the bazaars, mixing mercantile interests with religious values." ... Khomeini's
version of Islamism engaged the poor and spoke of class war.
This Cleavage between fundamentalism as revivalism and fundamentalism as revolution was

deep and for a long while coincided closely with the sectarian divide between the Sunnis - the
Muslim world's traditional `haves`, concerned more with conservative religiosity - and the Shia -
the longtime outsiders,` more drawn to radical dreaming and scheming."[40]
Graham Fuller has also noted that he found "no mainstream Islamist organization (with the ex-
ception of [shia] Iran) with radical social views or a revolutionary approach to the social order
apart from the imposition of legal justice."[41]
See also
 Islamism
 Jihadism
 Islamic democracy
 Islamic revival
 Islamic Peace
 Islam and war
 List of Islamic democratic political parties
 Modern Islamic philosophy
References
1. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali quoted in Mortimer, Edward, Faith and Power: The Politics of Islam, Vin-
tage Books, 1982, p.37
Page 121 of 136

2. Feldman, Noah, Fall and Rise of the Islamic State, Princeton University Press, 2008, p.2
3. R. B. Serjeant, "Sunnah Jāmi'ah, pacts with the Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrīm of Yathrib: analysis
and translation of the documents comprised in the so-called 'Constitution of Medina'", Bulletin
of the School of Oriental and African Studies (1978), 41: 1-42, Cambridge University Press.
4. See:
 Reuven Firestone, Jihād: the origin of holy war in Islam (1999) p. 118;
 "Muhammad", Encyclopedia of Islam Online
5. Watt. Muhammad at Medina and R. B. Serjeant "The Constitution of Medina." Islamic Quarterly
8 (1964) p.4.
6. Serjeant (1978), page 4.
7. Watt. Muhammad at Medina. pp. 227-228 Watt argues that the initial agreement was shortly af-
ter the hijra and the document was amended at a later date specifically after the battle of Badr
(AH [anno hijra] 2, = AD 624). Serjeant argues that the constitution is in fact 8 different treaties
which can be dated according to events as they transpired in Medina with the first treaty being
written shortly after Muhammad's arrival. R. B. Serjeant. "The Sunnah Jâmi'ah, Pacts with the
Yathrib Jews, and the Tahrîm of Yathrib: Analysis and Translation of the Documents Comprised in
the so called 'Constitution of Medina'." in The Life of Muhammad: The Formation of the Classical
Islamic World: Volume iv. Ed. Uri Rubin. Brookfield: Ashgate, 1998, p. 151 and see same article in
BSOAS 41 (1978): 18 ff. See also Caetani. Annali dell’Islam, Volume I. Milano: Hoepli, 1905, p.
393. Julius Wellhausen. Skizzen und Vorabeiten, IV, Berlin: Reimer, 1889, p 82f who argue that
the document is a single treaty agreed upon shortly after the hijra. Wellhausen argues that it be-
longs to the first year of Muhammad’s residence in Medina, before the battle of Badr in 2/624.
Wellhausen bases this judgement on three considerations; first Muhammad is very diffident
about his own position, he accepts the Pagan tribes within the Umma, and maintains the Jewish
clans as clients of the Ansars see Wellhausen, Excursus, p. 158. Even Moshe Gil a skeptic of Is-
lamic history argues that it was written within 5 months of Muhammad's arrival in Medina.
Moshe Gil. "The Constitution of Medina: A Reconsideration." Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974): p.
45.
8. Lewis, Bernard, The Middle East : a Brief History of the last 2000 Years, Touchstone, (1995), p.139
9. [1][dead link]
10. Lewis, The Middle East, (1995), p.143
11. Lewis, The Middle East, (1995), p.141
12. Judge Weeramantry, Christopher G. (1997), Justice Without Frontiers, Brill Publishers, pp. 134–5,
ISBN 90-411-0241-8
13. Sullivan, Antony T. (January–February 1997), "Istanbul Conference Traces Islamic Roots of West-
ern Law, Society", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: 36, retrieved 2008-02-29
14. Lenn Evan Goodman (2003), Islamic Humanism, p. 155, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-
513580-6.
15. al-Hibri, Azizah Y. (1998–1999), "Islamic and American Constitutional Law: Borrowing Possibilities
or a History of Borrowing", University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law 1 (3): 492–
527 [507–25]
16. Process of Choosing the Leader (Caliph) of the Muslims: The Muslim Khilafa: by Gharm Allah Al-
Ghamdy
17. The Early Islamic Conquests (1981)
18. Sohaib N. Sultan, Forming an Islamic Democracy
19. Understanding Islamism[dead link] Middle East/North Africa Report N°37 2 March 2005
20. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (2004), vol. 1, p. 116-123.
Page 122 of 136

21. Judge Weeramantry, Christopher G. (1997), Justice Without Frontiers, Brill Publishers, p. 135,
ISBN 90-411-0241-8
22. Noah Feldman (March 16, 2008). "Why Shariah?". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-05.
23. Makdisi, George (April–June 1989), "Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the
Christian West", Journal of the American Oriental Society 109 (2): 175–182 [175–77],
doi:10.2307/604423
25. Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy, translated by Carol Volk, Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1994, p.14-15
26. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 681
27. Weeramantry (1997), pp. 132 & 135
28. Momen, Moojan, Introduction to Shi'i Islam, Yale University Press, 1985 p.192
29. Freedom and Justice in the Middle East
30. Lambton, Ann K. S. (2002). State and Government in Medieval Islam. Routledge. p. 145. Retrieved
19 September 2015.
31. Ibn Taymiyya, Le traite de droit public d'ibn Taimiya. Translated by Henri Laoust. Beirut, 1948,
p.12
32. Kadri, Sadakat (2012). Heaven on Earth: A Journey Through Shari'a Law from the Deserts of An-
cient Arabia ... macmillan. p. 139. ISBN 9780099523277.
33. Momen, Moojan, Introduction to Shi'i Islam, Yale University Press, 1985 p.194
34. Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy, translated by Carol Volk, Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1994, p.32
36. Benhenda, M., Liberal Democracy and Political Islam: the Search for Common Ground,
SSRN 1475928
37. Roy, Failure of Political Islam, (1994) p.30-31
38. Roy, Failure of Political Islam, (1994) p.31
39. Roy, Failure of Political Islam. (1994) p.35-7
40. Shia Revival : How conflicts within Islam will shape the future by Vali Nasr, Norton, 2006, p.148-9
41. Fuller, Graham E., The Future of Political Islam, Palgrave MacMillan, (2003), p.26
Sources
The following sources generally prescribe to the theory that there is a distinct 20th-century
movement called Islamism:
 "Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam for Jews" Khalid Duran with Abdelwahab
Hechiche, The American Jewish Committee and Ktav, 2001
 "The Islamism Debate" Martin Kramer, 1997, which includes the chapter The Mismeasure of Po-
litical Islam
 "Liberal Islam: A Sourcebook" Charles Kurzman, Oxford University Press, 1998
 "The Challenge of Fundamentalism: Political Islam and the New World Disorder" Bassam Tibi,
Univ. of California Press, 1998
The following sources challenge the notion of an "Islamist movement":
 Edward Said, Orientalism
Page 123 of 136

 Merryl Wyn Davies, Beyond Frontiers: Islam and Contemporary Needs
 G. H. Jansen, Militant Islam, 1980
 Hamid Enyat, Modern Islamic Political Thought
These authors in general locate the issues of Islamic political intolerance and fanaticism not in
Islam, but in the generally low level of awareness of Islam's own mechanisms for dealing with
these, among modern believers, in part a result of Islam being suppressed prior to modern
times.
Further reading
On democracy in the Middle East, the role of Islamist political parties and the War on Terror-
ism:
 Ayoob, Mohammed. The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World.
University of Michigan Press, 2007.
 Marina Ottoway, et al., Democratic Mirage in the Middle East[dead link], Carnegie Endowment for
Ethics and International Peace, Policy Brief 20, (October 20, 2002).
 Marina Ottoway and Thomas Carothers, Think Again: Middle East Democracy, Foreign Policy
(Nov./Dec. 2004).
 Steven Wright, The United States and Persian Gulf Security: The Foundations of the War on Ter-
ror, Ithaca Press, 2007 ISBN 978-0-86372-321-6
 Adnan M. Hayajneh, The U.S. Strategy: Democracy and Internal Stability in the Arab World, Al-
ternatives (Volume 3, No. 2 & 3, Summer/Fall 2004).
 Gary Gambill, Jumpstarting Arab Reform: The Bush Administration's Greater Middle East Initia-
tive, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (Vol. 6, No. 6-7, June/July 2004).
 Remarks by the President at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy,
United States Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C., President Bush Discusses Freedom in
Iraq and Middle East, 6 November 2003.
 Robert Blecher, Free People Will Set the Course of History: Intellectuals, Democracy and Ameri-
can Empire, Middle East Report (March 2003).
 Robert Fisk, What Does Democracy Really Mean In The Middle East? Whatever The West De-
cides, The Independent, 8 August 2005.
 Fawaz Gergez, Is Democracy in the Middle East a Pipedream?[dead link], Yale Global Online, April 25,
2005.
 Masood Ashraf Raja. "Muslim Modernity: Poetics, Politics, and Metaphysics.” Muslim Societies
and the Challenge of Secularization: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Gabriele Marranci. Ed. Aber-
deen: Springer, 2010: 99-112.
External links
 Islam and Politics from the Dean Peter Krogh Foreign Affairs Digital Archives
 Liberal Democracy and Political Islam: The Search for Common Ground
 The Ideology of Terrorism and Violence in Saudi Arabia: Origins, Reasons and Solution
 Evaluating the Islamist movement by Greg Noakes, an American Muslim who works at the Wash-
ington Report.
 Muslim scholars face down fanaticism by Aicha Lemsine, an Algerian journalist and author.
Page 124 of 136

 Peter Krogh discuses Islam and politics with John L. Esposito and Mary Jane Deeb on Great Deci-
sions (1994).
Page 125 of 136

Political System of Islam
Source: http://www.angelfire.com/bc3/johnsonuk/eng/dawa/politic.html
SC4.LL.Sovereignty means the source of power. In Islam, Allah is the source of all powers and
laws (3:154, 12:40, 25:2, 67:1). It is Allah who knows what is good and what is bad for His serv-
ants. His say is final. Man is the vicegerent, the agent or the representative of Allah swt on
earth (2:30, 6:165). Allah is thesovereign and man is His representative. Man should do as Allah
commands him to do.The Islamic political system makes the ruler and the government respon-
sible firstly to Allah and then to the people. The ruler and the ruled are the Khalifah of Allah and
the ruler shall have to work for the welfare of the people according to the Qur’an and Sunnah.
A ruler is a servent of the people of Islam. Both the ruler and the ruled will appear before Allah
swt and account for their actionson the day of judgement. The responsibility of the ruler is
heaver than the ruled. Any ordinary citizen of an Islamic state has the right to ask any question
on any matter to the ruler andthe government.
Islam recognises the preferenceof one over the other only on the basis of Taqwa (piety or fear
of God). One who fears Allah swt most isthe noblest in Islam (49:13).
Political System of Islam
Religion and politics are one and the same in Islam. They are intertwined. We already know that
Islam is a complete system of life and politics is very much a part of our collective life. Just as
Islam teaches us how to say Salah, observe Sawm, pay Zakah and undertake Hajj, so it teaches
us how to run a state, from a government, elect councillors and members of parliament, make
treaties and conduct business and commerce. Bear in mind that Islamic ruling system is not the
same as the ruling system we have in the non-islamic countries.
A detailed discussion of the Islamic political system would be desirable, but we have to content
ourselves with its basic principles and main features.
The Islamic Political System is based on the folloing main principles:
1. Sovereignty of Allah swt.
Sovereignty means the source of power. In Islam, Allah is the source of all powers and laws
(3:154, 12:40, 25:2, 67:1). It is Allah who knows what is good and what is bad for His servants.
His say is final.
All human beings unitedly cannot change His law. The Qu’an says, "As for the thief -male and
female, chope off their hands. It is the reward of their own actions and exemplary punishment
from Allah. Allah is Mighty, Wise." (5:37).
According to Islam, this order is unchangeable by any parliament or any government which
claims itself to be Islamic (5:44, 2:229). There are many more laws in the Qur’an concerning our
Page 126 of 136

life and those laws must be put to practice by an Islamic state for the greater good of human
beings.
2. Khilafah of Mankind (Vicegerency of man).
Man is the vicegerent, the agent or the representative of Allah swt on earth (2:30, 6:165). Allah
is the sovereign and man is His representative. Man should do as Allah commands him to do.
But he has a choice to either obey or disobey Allah and, because of this freedom of choice, he
will be tested on the day of judgement. In the political sense, Khilafah means that human be-
ings should implement the will of Allah on earth as His deputy or agent. As Allah’s agents, hu-
man beings will carry out the will of Allah swt on His behalf as a trust (Amanah). Khilafah is a
trust. An agent is always expected to behave as his master wants him to behave (10:14).
3. Legislation by Shura (Consultation).
Islam teaches us to run a government, to make legislation and decisions by the process of
Shura. Shura means "to take decisions by consultation and participation" (3:159, 42:38). This is
an important part of the Islamic political system. There is no scope for despotism in Islam. The
Qur’an and the Sunnah will be the basis of legislation in Islam.
4. Accountability of government.
The Islamic political system makes the ruler and the government responsible firstly to Allah and
then to the people. The rular and the government are elected by the people to exercise ‘powers
on their behalf. We must remember here that both the ruler and the ruled are the Khalifah of
Allah and the ruler shall have to work for the welfare of the people according to the Qur’an and
Sunnah. A ruler is a servent of the people of Islam. Both the ruler and the ruled will appear be-
fore Allah swt and account for their actions on the day of judgement. The responsibility of the
ruler is heaver than the ruled.
Any ordinary citizen of an Islamic state has the right to ask any question on any matter to the
ruler and the government.
5. Independence of judiciary.
In the Islamic political system, the Judiciary is independent of the Executive. The head of the
state or any government minister could be called to the court if necessary. They would be
treated no differently from other citizens. The Qur’an has many injunctions about justice. One
of the main functions of the Islamic state is to ensure justice to all citizens (4:58, 4:135, 5:8).
The ruler and the government has no right to interfere in the system of justice.
6. Equality before law.
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The Islamic political system ensures equality for all citizens before the law. It does not recognise
any discrimination on the basis of language, colour, territory, sex or descent. Islam recognises
the preference of one over the other only on the basis of Taqwa (piety or fear of God). One who
fears Allah swt most is the noblest in Islam (49:13).
Conclusion
The duty of an Islamic state is to establish Salah and Zakah; promote the right and forbid the
wrong (22:44). The state is responsible for the welfare of all its citizens - Muslims and non-
Muslims alike. It must guarantee the basic necessities of life. All citizens of the Islamic state
shall enjoy freedom of belief, thought, conscience and speech. Every citizen shall be free to de-
velop his potential, improve his capacity, earn and possess. A citizen shall enjoy the right to
support or oppose any government policy which he thinks right or wrong with the following in
mind.:
The Islamic state is a duty bound to implement the laws of the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The
Qur’an strongly denounces those who do not decide their matters by Allah’s revelations (5:42-
50).
The Islamic state shall ensure a fair distribution of wealth. Islam does not believe in equal dis-
tribution as it is against the law of creation.
There is not a single perfect Islamic state in the world today. There are many Muslim countries.
An Islamic state is based on the model of Prophet Muhammad’s (phuh) state in Madinah while
a Muslim state is one which has a majority Muslim population and some Islamic features.
However, organised efforts have been going on in many Muslim countries to establish truly Is-
lamic states. Al-ikhwanul Muslimun in the Middle East, Muzahid or Taliban in Afganistan, the
Jama’at-e-Islami in Pakistan, and Kashmir, Jehaad movement in Bangladesh, (infor. source- BBC
UK) Dewan Dakwah Islamia (Islamic Dawah Council) in Indonesia, Al-Muhajirun in Britain, and
Hizb-ut-Tahrir in most advanced Islamic (muslim population) countries are some of the Islamic
movements and parties which have been working for the re-establishment of Allah’s law on Al-
lah’s land.
Let us pray and hope that a real Islamic state will emerge and guide the world towards justice,
fair play and peace (very soon -if God wills).
The numbers in brackets represents Reference in the qur'anfor example (4:1) means qur'an
Chapter 4 Verse 1.
ref..ISLAM: Beliefs and Teachings --by.. GHULAM SARWAR --Director of the MuslimEducational
Trust.
Page 128 of 136

Page 129 of 136
Chapter 27: Foreign Policy Analysis
• Foreign Policy
-A country’s goals in relation to the outside world and its strategies to attain them
-a country’s overall plan to defend and promote its interests, especially its security vis-a-
vis threats from outside the country
 Foreign Policy Goals

o To protect physical security
o To protect neighbours and allies
o To protect economic security
 Foreign Policy Making and Organizations
o Diplomacy
o Military power
o Economic exchange
o Intelligence gathering
 Uses of Military Power
o Unlimited nuclear war
o Limited nuclear war
o Unlimited conventional war
o Limited conventional war
o Counter-insurgency
o Police-type action
 Politics of National Defence
o Public opinion and elite conflict
o Military-industrial complex
 Economic Dimension
o A changing world economy
o Politics of global economic policy
o Goals in Global Economy
 Trade
 Access to natural resources
 Relations with developing countries
 International Ideologies
o 1) International Communitarians
 Yes to government agencies to follow policies that protect the
Page 130 of 136

environment and workers
 Yes to tariffs, import quotas, subsidies to national businesses
o 2) International Conservatives
 No to other countries monitoring human rights conditions at home
 Yes to tariffs, quotas, and subsidies
o 3) International Libertarians
 No to other countries monitoring human rights conditions at home
 No to foreign countries or organizations supervising national troops
abroad
 No to tariffs, quotas, and subsidies
o 4) International Liberals
 Yes to international government protecting the environment, workers,
immigrants, and children abroad
 No to tariffs, quotas, and subsidies
• Lead Players
-President or Prime Minister
-Parliament or Congress: Funding
 Supporting Players
o Ministries or Departments of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Intelligence, etc.
o Specialists and experts at think tanks
 History of Foreign Policy
o World War I
o World War II
o Containment
o Cold War
o Vietnam War
o Detente
o End of Cold War
o New World Order
o War on Terrorism
 Global Policy Issue Areas
o Global problems are “intermestic problems,” both international and domestic
o e.g., air, diseases, climate
o Population
o Foreign investment and international trade
o Human rights
Page 131 of 136

o Poverty and foreign aid
o Environment
 Globalization
o Interdependence
 The Public
o Interest groups: foreign firms, groups, and governments hire lobby groups to
represent their interests
 Instruments of Foreign Policy
o Military Intervention
 Military alliances
 Military aid
o Economic Instruments
 Trade
 Economic sanctions
 Foreign aid
• 1) Cite one foreign policy issue of a major country that has a very positive impact
on the rest of the world? Explain.
• 2) Cite one foreign policy issue of a major country that has a very negative impact
on the rest of the world. Explain.
• 3) Imagine for a second that you have the power to do so: what foreign policy
decision will you make to make this world a better place for all? Explain.
Page 132 of 136

Chapter 28: Good Governance: Issues and Challenges
• 1) Cite one major issue related to good governance in the place where you live.
Explain.
• 2) Why are there problems of good governance in many parts of the world?
Explain.
• 3) What are your recommendations to remedy problems related to good

governance in the place where you live? Explain.
Page 133 of 136

Chapter 29: Globalization and Regional Integration
Reference: Spiegel. World Politics in a New Era.
l. Globalization
• Globalization
• Increasing interdependence among people and countries

across the world
• Economic, political, military, cultural, social...
• Development
• Globalization of International Relations
• Glocal: Global + Local
• International Trade
• Global Business and Finance
• International Integration
• Development
• Human Issues: Demography, Population, and Migration
• Nature, Resources, Environment, and Population
II. Regional Integration
• 1) Explain the positive impact of globalization on the place where you live.
• 2) Explain the negative impact of globalization on the place where you live.
Page 134 of 136

Chapter 30: International Politics: Role of Developed, Developing, and
Muslim Countries
Reference: Roskin & Berry. International Relations: The New World of International Relations.
9thed.
• Power and Systems Transformation
• IR Theories
• U.S. Changing National Interests
• Vietnam
• Russia
• Can U.S. Lead the World?
• Holy Land
• Oil and the Persian Gulf
• Latin America
• Rich and Poor Coutries
• Causes of Interstate Confict
• National Security
• Nuclear Power
• Asymmetrical Conflict
• Europe Unifies
• Asia Awakes
• U.S. and Globalization
• Diplomacy
• International Law
• Reach of the USA
Page 135 of 136

• Food, Energy, and Water
• 1) Discuss one major contribution of a developing country to the rest of the

world. Explain.
• 2) Discuss one major contribution of a Muslim country to the rest of the world.
Explain.
• 3) Discuss one major contribution of a developed country to the rest of the

world. Explain.
• 4) Discuss one major problem that a developing country has brought to the rest
of the world. Explain.
• 2) Discuss one major problem a Muslim country has brought to the rest of the
world. Explain.
• 3) Discuss one major problem a developed country has brought to to the rest of
the world. Explain.
Discuss the political economy of current situation of stark income inequality within countries
and across countries and provide suggestions for bridging the income gap.
Page 136 of 136

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Introduction to

Some Major Publications Cited ..................................................................................................................... 7

2. James N. Danziger. (2011). Understanding the Political World. Boston: Longman.

4. Patterson, T. E. American democracy, 11thed. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

1. Nature and Scope

2. Traditional and Modern Approaches

5. Nationalism and Nation State

6. State and Civil Society

9. Political Obligation and Resistance

11. Contemporary Issues and Debates

12. Forms of Government

13. Democracy, Political Preferences, and Voting Behaviour

14. Prerequisites and Measurement of Democracy

15. Dimensions of Democracy

16. Political Ideologies

17. Mapping Political Preferences

18. Political Philosophies

19. Comparative Politics

20. Public Policy

21. Public Administration

22. Local Government

23. Political and Economic Development

24. Ethnic Conflict

26. Islamic Political System

27. Foreign Policy Analysis

28. Good Governance

29. Globalization and Regional Integration

30. International Politics: Developed, Developing, and Muslim Countries

• Why Study Politics?

• Affect our daily lives

• Birth certificates, national identification cards, passports, death certificates

• What we can buy, how much

• Where we can live, make business, pay taxes

• Schools, roads, buses

• Relations with other countries

• Develop Political Thinking among Informed Citizens for Functioning Democracies

• Nature and Definition of Political Science

• Greek word polis = city

• Polis: root word of police, policy, politics, political, -polis (Indianapolis,

• Participation in the affairs of the state

• Study different countries

• Conflict and resolution of conflict

• Process through which conflicts are settled in a society

• Process through which government decisions are made

• Authoritative allocation of resources

• Old French “science:” knowledge, learning, application

• Systematic study of politics

• Historical Background of Political Science

• First Century B.C.

• Plato’s dialogues: justice, good government, what is good for humanity

• Aristotle: scientific observation and description of types of government

• 17th Century AD: Thomas Hobbes: elements of government

• 19th Century: Karl Marx and Max Weber: sociological approach

• City-states of Ancient Greece

• Monarchy and Feudalism

• Study political campaigns; influence votes

• Quantitative methods and statistics to study president, Congress,

• Scope and Disciplines of Political Science

• Political Analysis: Nation, State, Government, Sovereignty, Independence...

• International Studies, Politics, Relations

• Comparative Government and Politics

• What Do Political Scientists Do?

• 1) Why is the study of politics important?