Is the political regime the fate of the people or their conscious choice?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

The political regime is a system of government, the methods that the authorities use to maintain order, ways to respond to public mood. What contributes to its preservation for many decades, and what can cause discontent among the population of the country and cause a change in the ruling power?

Speaking about the political regime, I would like to note a small nuance. Many (as it turned out, up to a certain time, and the author too) often confuse or confuse two concepts: “form of government” and “political regime”. Let's split them up a bit. The form of government is a harmonious system. It is she who characterizes the interaction of the branches of government, the procedure for the formation of the government and the determination of the head of state. The political regime is more about the nature, means and methods on the basis of which there is interaction between the authorities, as well as between the authorities and the population. So, for example, the political regime of Japan is democratic, and the form of government is a constitutional monarchy.

Since we are talking about the differences in these concepts, it is logical to focus on their typology. Political science highlights democraticand terrorist (authoritarian and totalitarian) types of regimes. As for the forms of government, there are many more:

• State: federal (Australia), Islamic (Afghanistan), multinational (Bolivia), unitary (Sri Lanka).
• Republic, including federal (Austria), unitary (Bangladesh), Islamic (Iran). The republican form of government is inherent in most modern states, including Russia.
• Monarchy - constitutional (Japan), absolute theocratic (Vatican), absolute (Brunei), parliamentary (Spain). The monarchy, as such, is Oman.
• Parliamentary Principality (Andorra).

As you can see, the forms of government are more diverse. Moreover, some of them exist only in one state. An example of this is the Vatican, Andorra, Iran, Bolivia, Sri Lanka, Spain, Afghanistan.

Features of political regimes according to Aristotle

Studying the materials for this article, I was surprised by the approach to political regimes that were proposed by Aristotle. It seemed to me that in his work "Politics" the essence of the state system was presented in the most accessible and correct interpretation. So, Aristotle singled out 6 main political regimes. Of these, three were correct forms, and three were their perverse variations.

• The correct political regime is (according to the great philosopher) a monarchy, an aristocracy and a polity. Their correctness lies in the fact that the actions of the government are aimed at the benefit of citizens.
• Pervertedthe political regime is a distortion of the principles of "correctness". These include tyranny, oligarchy and democracy. In these systems of government, the actions of the authorities are aimed at “good for themselves.”

An interesting fact is that Cicero, when translating this treatise, according to some sources, replaced the concept of "polity" with the concept of "republic", which drastically affected the possibility of correct perception of the text. (Republic in those days was one of the names of the Roman Empire.)

Legitimacy of regimes

Surely many are also interested in the question of why some regimes, which should cause violent rejection, remain unshakable for many centuries?

To denote such approval, there is such a term as "legitimacy". It implies that the citizens of the state recognize the order and methods used by the authorities as correct and acceptable. At the same time, there are practically no attempts among the population to disrupt the existing order in society, no attempts are made to overthrow the government and change the system. All actions and demands of the authorities are perceived as natural, necessary and the only true ones. Agree, it is very similar to what kind of political regime in Russia (more precisely, the USSR) existed during the reign of I. V. Stalin. It is on this principle that North Korea has existed for decades.

What is the reason for such "submissiveness" on the part of the population? Correctly built ideology. Legitimate political regime is power,which is based on primordial and ancient traditions, religion, political orientation (which can also be considered a kind of religion), as well as the principles of rationality.