Authoritarian Systems
In AUTHORITARIAN SYSTEMS, power resides with the state. This means that the state has the authority to make decisions concerning how power will be exercised and how the social order will be structured. In other words, only the state can make decisions regarding how people should live their collective lives.
In authoritarian systems, people have obligations and responsibilities to the state, but they do not necessarily have rights or privileges against the state (unless rights or privileges are granted to the people, as was the case with the Magna Carta, in which case the state may choose to reissue or recall those rights as it sees fit). In authoritarian systems, people play the role of SUBJECTS who must submit to the state’s exercise of power.
Governments that are considered to fall within the scope of authoritarian political systems include, but are not limited to,
- MONARCHY – undivided rule or absolute sovereignty by a single person
- DICTATORSHIP – rule or absolute power by a dictator or a small clique
- ARISTOCRACY – rule by the best suited, through virtue, talent, or education
- OLIGARCHY – rule by a few members of the elite, an economic class that controls political and economic affairs
Nonauthoritarian Systems
In NONAUTHORITARIAN SYSTEMS, power resides with the people. This means that individuals, either directly or indirectly, make decisions concerning how power will be exercised and how the social order will be structured.
ANARCHY, or the absence of government, is considered to be the most extreme form of social order falling within the scope of nonauthoritarian political systems.
DEMOCRACY also falls within the scope of nonauthoritarian political systems. In democracies, power resides with the people. People play the role of CITIZENS who have consented to be governed; they have obligations and responsibilities to the state, and the state provides procedural guarantees to preserve their rights as citizens.