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Political Power Dynamics

Political power dynamics refer to the processes by which authority, resources, and influence over collective decisions are allocated, competed for, and wielded among actors in political systems, often manifesting as social causation where one entity alters the behavior of another.^[1] These dynamics operate through formal institutions like legislatures and executives, as well as informal networks of elites, interest groups, and economic actors, determining outcomes in policy, governance, and resource distribution.^[2] Empirical analyses reveal that power tends to concentrate among economic elites and organized business interests, who exert substantial independent effects on government policy, while mass publics and average citizens exhibit minimal to negligible influence on final decisions.^[3] Theoretical frameworks for understanding these dynamics include pluralism, which asserts that power disperses across competing veto groups and interest organizations in democracies, enabling broad responsiveness; and elite theory, which contends that a cohesive minority—often drawn from wealth, corporate leadership, and political insiders—dominates decision-making due to superior resources and access.^[2]^[4] Studies measuring power concentration across political systems further indicate that institutional checks, such as separation of powers, rarely diffuse influence evenly, with veto points more often reinforcing elite coordination than empowering diffuse publics.^[5] Controversies arise from evidence that concentrated economic power translates into political leverage, fostering policy biases toward corporate interests and exacerbating inequalities, as seen in correlations between market concentration and lobbying efficacy.^[6] Notable characteristics include the role of causal factors like institutional path dependence, where historical power imbalances perpetuate through self-reinforcing mechanisms, and the corrupting potential of unchecked authority, which empirical psychology links to heightened moral hypocrisy and reduced empathy among power holders.^[7]^[8] Shifts in dynamics often stem from crises, technological changes, or leadership agency, challenging entrenched elites, though data on civil conflicts highlight risks from mismatches between ethnic groups' political representation and military capabilities.^[9] Overall, these patterns underscore that while democratic rituals provide avenues for contestation, real causal influence flows disproportionately from concentrated sources, informing debates on governance efficacy and reform imperatives.^[3]

Core Concepts

Definition and Scope

Political power denotes the capacity of individuals, groups, or institutions to influence or coerce outcomes in collective decision-making processes, particularly those involving governance, resource allocation, and conflict resolution. Max Weber conceptualized power as "the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests."^[10] In the political domain, this translates to the state's monopoly on legitimate violence, as Weber further elaborated, enabling rulers to enforce compliance through legal-rational, traditional, or charismatic authority structures. Empirical evidence from historical state formations, such as the consolidation of absolutist monarchies in 17th-century Europe, demonstrates how political power emerges from the effective control of coercive apparatuses and administrative bureaucracies to override opposition.^[11] Power dynamics describe the relational and temporal processes through which such power is contested, redistributed, and stabilized, often involving strategic interactions among actors vying for advantage. These dynamics arise from asymmetries in resources—economic wealth, military force, informational control, and ideological legitimacy—that actors leverage to shape preferences or constrain alternatives. Scholarly analyses frame political power as a form of social causation, where one entity's actions systematically alter another's behavior, as seen in lobbying influences on U.S. congressional voting patterns, where campaign contributions from interest groups correlated with policy favors in over 80% of tracked cases from 1980 to 2020.^[1] Unlike static distributions, dynamics incorporate feedback loops, such as elite capture in post-colonial states, where initial power vacuums led to entrenched oligarchies by the 1990s, perpetuating inequality through patronage networks.^[12] The scope of political power dynamics in political science encompasses both micro-level interpersonal negotiations and macro-level systemic shifts, spanning domestic institutions like parliaments and executives, as well as international relations among sovereign states. It excludes purely private economic exchanges but includes their intersections with public policy, such as regulatory capture by corporations affecting national legislation. This field prioritizes causal mechanisms over normative ideals, examining how power concentrations—evident in data showing that in democracies, top 1% income shares predict policy bias toward elites—drive outcomes like wealth redistribution failures despite majority public support for progressive taxation in surveys from 2010 onward. Analyses must account for source biases, as academic studies from institutions with ideological leanings may underemphasize elite dominance in favor of pluralist models, yet cross-verified empirical metrics, including Gini coefficients and veto player counts, consistently reveal power's hierarchical reality across regimes.^[1]

Sources and Forms of Power

Political power derives from various sources, including the capacity to coerce through force or threats, control over economic resources that enable incentives or sanctions, and the cultivation of legitimacy via ideological or cultural appeal. Coercive power stems from monopolies on violence, such as state militaries or police forces, which enforce compliance; for instance, the U.S. military budget reached $877 billion in fiscal year 2023, underscoring its role as a primary instrument of national power projection. Economic resources provide leverage by distributing rewards or withholding them, as seen in how oil-exporting states like Saudi Arabia influence global politics through energy supply control. Legitimacy arises from perceived rightful authority, reducing the need for overt coercion by fostering voluntary obedience.^[13] Sociologist Max Weber identified three ideal types of legitimate authority as key forms through which power is exercised and accepted: traditional authority, rooted in longstanding customs and loyalty to hereditary rulers; charismatic authority, based on the exceptional personal qualities of a leader that inspire devotion; and rational-legal authority, derived from formalized rules and bureaucratic structures in modern states. Traditional authority persists in monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia's absolute rule under King Salman since 2015, where power is justified by dynastic continuity.^[13] Charismatic authority, though unstable and often routinized into legal forms over time, exemplified leaders like Adolf Hitler, whose appeal mobilized mass support in 1930s Germany before institutionalizing control.^[13] Rational-legal authority dominates contemporary democracies and bureaucracies, as in the U.S. federal government, where elected officials derive power from constitutional procedures and legal accountability.^[13] In international relations, political scientist Joseph Nye distinguishes hard power, involving compulsion through military or economic means, from soft power, which attracts others via cultural appeal, diplomatic values, and policy credibility. Hard power is quantifiable, such as the 1.3 million active U.S. troops enabling deterrence, while soft power relies on intangibles like Hollywood's global cultural export, which Nye estimates contributes to U.S. influence without direct coercion.^[14] Smart power combines both, as practiced by states balancing alliances with military readiness; for example, NATO's expansion since 1999 has merged U.S. hard power commitments with soft appeals to democratic norms.^[14] These forms interact dynamically, with legitimacy amplifying raw coercive potential, though empirical studies show overreliance on hard power can erode soft influence, as in declining U.S. global approval ratings post-Iraq War from 64% in 2002 to 41% by 2020.^[14]

Theoretical Perspectives

Elite Theory

Elite theory posits that in all societies, political power is concentrated among a small, cohesive minority of elites who control key institutions, rather than being broadly distributed as democratic rhetoric suggests. This perspective emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a critique of idealistic views of mass rule, emphasizing instead the organizational advantages and psychological predispositions that enable minorities to dominate. Proponents argue that elites maintain power through superior coordination, access to resources, and adaptation to changing circumstances, while the majority remains passive or manipulated.^[15] Gaetano Mosca, in his 1896 work Elementi di Scienza Politica (translated as The Ruling Class), contended that every organized society divides into a ruling class—a compact, hierarchical minority—and a larger class of the ruled, with the former perpetuating dominance via a "political formula" that justifies its authority, such as divine right or popular sovereignty.^[16] Vilfredo Pareto extended this in The Mind and Society (1916), describing elites as divided into "lions" (force-oriented) and "foxes" (cunning-oriented), with power shifting through the "circulation of elites"—where declining elites yield to rising challengers, preventing total stagnation but ensuring minority rule persists.^[17] Robert Michels formalized the "iron law of oligarchy" in Political Parties (1911), observing that even avowedly egalitarian organizations, like socialist parties, inevitably oligarchize due to the technical necessity of leadership, delegates' self-interest, and the masses' inertia, rendering pure democracy unattainable.^[18] In the mid-20th century, C. Wright Mills applied elite theory to the United States in The Power Elite (1956), identifying an interlocking triad of corporate executives, high military officers, and political directors who shape national policy amid post-World War II centralization, often bypassing broader input.^[19] Empirical analyses corroborate these dynamics: a 2014 study of nearly 1,800 U.S. policy issues from 1981 to 2002 found that economic elites and organized business interests exert substantial independent influence on outcomes, while average citizens' preferences have "near-zero, statistically non-significant impact" when diverging from elite views.^[3] Similarly, data on campaign finance reveal elite sway, as the top 0.01% of income earners provided over 40% of contributions to federal candidates in the 2020 U.S. election cycle, enabling disproportionate policy alignment with donor priorities. Such patterns extend globally, with elite capture evident in revolving doors between government and industry, as seen in the European Union's reliance on former corporate lobbyists for regulatory roles.^[20] Critics from pluralist traditions dispute elite cohesion, claiming competing groups diffuse power, but evidence of unified elite interests—via shared education at elite institutions (e.g., over 50% of U.S. Fortune 500 CEOs from Ivy League or equivalent) and interlocking directorates—undermines this, showing causal pathways from elite consensus to policy via think tanks and lobbying.^[21] Elite theory thus highlights causal realism in power dynamics: formal democratic mechanisms serve as facades, with true agency residing in networks resilient to electoral fluctuations, as Pareto's circulation ensures adaptation without mass empowerment.^[22]

Pluralist Theory

Pluralist theory asserts that political power in democracies is distributed across multiple competing interest groups, organizations, and factions, rather than being monopolized by a unified elite or class. This perspective emphasizes that no single entity dominates all policy domains; instead, influence shifts depending on the issue, with groups mobilizing resources like lobbying, voting, and public opinion to advance their agendas. Proponents argue this competition fosters responsiveness and prevents tyranny, as coalitions form and dissolve dynamically.^[23]^[24] A foundational empirical contribution came from Robert Dahl's 1961 analysis of urban politics in New Haven, Connecticut, detailed in Who Governs?. Examining decisions on urban redevelopment, public education, and nominations from the 1950s, Dahl identified diverse actors—including business leaders, party operatives, bureaucrats, and community groups—exerting influence without a cohesive ruling elite controlling outcomes across domains. He quantified power through reputational surveys and observed decision traces, concluding that "polyarchy" characterized the system, where access to influence was broadly distributed among active participants. David Truman similarly advanced the view in his 1951 work The Governmental Process, portraying interest groups as essential intermediaries that aggregate societal demands and check governmental overreach.^[25]^[26]^[27] Critics, particularly from elite theory, contend that pluralism underestimates structural inequalities in resources, such as wealth and organizational capacity, which skew competition toward privileged actors. Reassessments of Dahl's New Haven data, for instance, reveal that business interests and upper-stratum participants disproportionately shaped key redevelopment policies, suggesting covert elite coordination rather than open contestation. Empirical studies post-1960s, including those on national policy-making, indicate that while overt competition occurs, veto power and agenda-setting remain concentrated among economic elites, challenging the theory's dispersion claim. Academic proponents of pluralism often draw from mid-20th-century U.S. cases, potentially overlooking how globalization and campaign finance disparities—evident in Federal Election Commission data showing top donors influencing outcomes—erode equal access.^[28]^[25]^[27]^[29]

Marxist and Critical Theories

Marxist theory posits that political power fundamentally derives from economic relations, with the ruling class—identified as the bourgeoisie in capitalist societies—exerting dominance through ownership of the means of production.^[30] This control shapes the superstructure, including the state, law, and ideology, which serve to perpetuate class interests and suppress proletarian revolt. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, in works like The Communist Manifesto (1848), described the modern state as "a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie," arguing that apparent democratic institutions mask coercion enforced by state apparatuses such as police and military.^[30] Empirical analysis of 19th-century Europe, where industrial capitalism concentrated wealth—evidenced by data showing the top 1% owning over 50% of property in Britain by 1867—supported their view of power as rooted in material exploitation rather than pluralist consent.^[31] Extensions in critical theory, particularly Antonio Gramsci's concept of hegemony developed during his imprisonment under Mussolini (1926–1937), refine this by emphasizing ideological consent over overt force. Gramsci argued that ruling classes secure power not solely through economic coercion but by establishing cultural and moral leadership that aligns subordinate classes' beliefs with elite interests, embedding dominance in civil society institutions like education and media.^[32] This "hegemony" explains the stability of capitalist orders despite inequality, as seen in interwar Italy where fascist ideology co-opted socialist rhetoric to maintain elite control. However, Gramsci's framework, outlined in Prison Notebooks, has faced critique for underestimating counter-hegemonic resistance; historical data from the 20th century, including failed communist uprisings in Western Europe post-World War I, indicate that ideological apparatuses often reinforce rather than dismantle entrenched power structures.^[33] The Frankfurt School's critical theory, founded in 1923 at the Institute for Social Research, further critiques power dynamics by integrating Marxist economics with psychoanalytic and cultural analysis, targeting the "culture industry" as a mechanism of mass deception. Thinkers like Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947), contended that advanced capitalism commodifies culture to foster conformity, eroding critical faculties and sustaining bourgeois hegemony amid economic crises like the Great Depression, where unemployment reached 25% in Germany by 1932.^[34] Herbert Marcuse extended this in One-Dimensional Man (1964), viewing technological rationality as neutralizing dissent. Yet, empirical evaluations reveal inconsistencies: predictions of imminent capitalist collapse via worker alienation did not materialize in welfare states post-1945, where real wages rose 2-3% annually in OECD countries, suggesting adaptive mechanisms beyond class antagonism.^[35] Applications in Soviet-style regimes, such as the USSR's purges (1936–1938) claiming 700,000 lives, demonstrated power concentration in party elites, contradicting egalitarian ideals and highlighting authoritarian perversions of Marxist state theory.^[31]^[36]

Realist and Institutional Approaches

Political realism conceives of power dynamics as fundamentally driven by self-interested actors in a competitive environment, where conflict arises from scarcity of resources and inherent human tendencies toward dominance and survival. This perspective traces to ancient thinkers like Thucydides, who in History of the Peloponnesian War (circa 411 BCE) attributed the war's outbreak to Sparta's fear of Athens' growing power, illustrating how shifts in relative capabilities precipitate rivalry rather than ideological differences alone.^[37] Hans Morgenthau, in Politics Among Nations (1948), formalized six principles, asserting that politics is governed by objective laws rooted in unchanging human nature, with interest defined primarily in terms of power, rendering universal moral absolutes impractical in statecraft.^[38] Realists thus prioritize empirical observation of power balances over normative ideals, viewing alliances and institutions as temporary expedients subordinate to raw capabilities like military strength and economic resources. In domestic contexts, realist approaches extend this logic to intra-state competitions, where elites or factions maneuver for control amid anarchic tendencies within fragmented polities, as seen in Machiavelli's The Prince (1532), which advises rulers to prioritize virtù—effective power wielding—over ethical constraints to maintain stability.^[37] Power dynamics under realism manifest as zero-sum games, with actors rationally pursuing relative gains; for instance, Otto von Bismarck's unification of Germany (1871) exemplified realpolitik, balancing coalitions through calculated force and diplomacy to consolidate Prussian dominance without overextension.^[39] Critics from idealist traditions argue this underemphasizes cooperation, but realists counter with evidence from historical cycles of hegemony, such as Britain's 19th-century naval supremacy enabling global influence until challenged by rising powers like the United States post-1890.^[40] Institutional approaches complement realism by examining how formal rules, organizations, and norms structure power distribution and constrain arbitrary exercise, positing that enduring political orders emerge from codified arrangements rather than pure voluntarism. Rooted in Aristotle's classification of regimes in Politics (circa 350 BCE) and refined through modern comparative analysis, this framework analyzes legislatures, executives, and judiciaries as mechanisms allocating authority; for example, separation of powers in the U.S. Constitution (1787) limits executive overreach by dispersing veto points.^[41] ^[42] Rational choice institutionalism models actors as utility maximizers within rule-bound games, where institutions reduce transaction costs and credible commitments, as in Douglass North's analysis of property rights evolution stabilizing economic power from medieval Europe onward. Historical institutionalism highlights path dependency, where early power configurations lock in advantages; Acemoglu and Robinson's work shows how extractive institutions in colonial Latin America (post-1500s) perpetuated elite dominance by entrenching de facto veto powers over reform, contrasting inclusive setups in settler colonies like Australia. Sociological variants incorporate cultural norms, arguing institutions embed power asymmetries, such as bureaucratic hierarchies reinforcing state capacity in post-World War II Japan through meritocratic recruitment amid U.S.-imposed reforms (1945–1952).^[43] While institutionalists acknowledge realist power imperatives, they stress that rules can alter incentives—e.g., federalism diffusing central authority in India's 1950 Constitution to manage ethnic cleavages—yet warn of capture, where dominant actors reshape institutions to their favor, as in Russia's post-1991 centralization under Putin.^[44] Empirical studies, including cross-national datasets on governance indices, affirm that robust institutions correlate with lower corruption and more predictable power transitions, though causal direction remains debated given endogeneity with underlying power realities.^[45]

Historical Development

Ancient and Feudal Systems

In ancient civilizations, political power was predominantly centralized in monarchs who derived legitimacy from divine sanction or military prowess, enabling control over vast resources and populations through hierarchical bureaucracies and priesthoods. In Egypt, pharaohs from the unification around 3100 BCE exercised absolute authority as living gods, intermediaries between deities and subjects, overseeing law, agriculture via Nile floods, and monumental projects like pyramids, with power sustained by a vizier-led administration and corvée labor.^[46]^[47] This theocratic model maintained stability for over three millennia, as pharaohs embodied ma'at (cosmic order), compelling loyalty through religious ideology rather than mere coercion. Mesopotamian city-states, emerging around 3500 BCE in Sumer, featured kings (lugal) who wielded power through assemblies of elders and military conquests, though divine kingship was not absolute and often checked by temple institutions and local elites. Rulers like Sargon of Akkad (c. 2334–2279 BCE) unified disparate states into empires via superior armies, codifying laws such as Hammurabi's in 1750 BCE to legitimize rule, yet frequent revolts highlighted power's fragility amid irrigation-dependent economies and inter-city rivalries.^[48]^[49] In contrast, classical Greece (c. 800–323 BCE) exhibited diverse systems: Athens implemented limited direct democracy after Cleisthenes' reforms in 508 BCE, where power resided in male citizen assemblies (excluding women, slaves, and foreigners, comprising perhaps 10-20% of the population), balanced by elected strategoi and courts; Sparta maintained an oligarchic dyarchy with two hereditary kings subordinated to a council of elders (Gerousia) and ephors, prioritizing militarized equality among Spartiates to enforce communal discipline.^[50]^[51] Rome's evolution underscored shifts from distributed to concentrated power: the Republic (509–27 BCE) diffused authority among consuls, senate, and popular assemblies, enabling expansion to dominate the Mediterranean by 146 BCE through flexible legions and client networks, but civil wars exposed elite factionalism. Julius Caesar's dictatorship (49–44 BCE) and Octavian's triumph at Actium (31 BCE) precipitated the Empire, where Augustus (27 BCE–14 CE) monopolized imperium and tribunician powers, masking autocracy under republican facades while centralizing military loyalty and taxation.^[52]^[53] Feudal systems in medieval Europe arose amid Carolingian fragmentation after Charlemagne's death in 814 CE, evolving by the 10th century into a decentralized hierarchy where kings granted fiefs (land) to lords in exchange for oaths of fealty, military service (typically 40 days annually), and counsel, fragmenting central authority due to poor communications and Viking/Magyar incursions. Lords subdivided estates to vassals and knights, who extracted surplus from bound serfs (80-90% of the population) via manorial labor obligations, creating reciprocal but asymmetric bonds: upward protection and justice, downward economic exploitation.^[54]^[55] This structure prioritized local autonomy—kings like those of France often commanded fewer direct troops than dukes—fostering dynastic wars yet stabilizing agrarian societies until commutation and monetization eroded it by the 13th century.^[56] Power dynamics emphasized personal loyalty over abstract state sovereignty, with breaches punished by forfeiture rather than codified law.^[57]

Rise of the Nation-State

The rise of the nation-state in early modern Europe transformed political power from fragmented feudal hierarchies—characterized by overlapping loyalties to lords, the Church, and empires—into centralized structures where sovereign rulers exercised monopoly control over territory, law, and coercion. This shift began in the late medieval period, as economic transformations including urban growth and expanded commerce eroded feudal manorial systems and vassal obligations by the 15th century, enabling monarchs to extract taxes and resources directly from emerging national economies. The introduction of gunpowder artillery and firearms from the 14th century facilitated this centralization, as costly professional armies supplanted decentralized knightly levies, allowing rulers like those in France and England to overpower resistant nobility and forge cohesive military apparatuses under royal command.^[58] The Protestant Reformation, sparked by Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, accelerated the process by challenging the Catholic Church's supranational authority, which had previously constrained secular power through doctrines of papal supremacy over temporal rulers. By fracturing religious unity, the Reformation empowered princes and kings to confiscate church lands, enforce state religions, and legitimize absolutist rule as divinely ordained within national boundaries, thereby subordinating ecclesiastical influence to monarchical control. This religious realignment contributed to conflicts that underscored the need for sovereign autonomy, as rulers sought to prevent external ideological interference in domestic affairs. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), a conflation of Protestant-Catholic hostilities and dynastic rivalries that killed an estimated 20% of Central Europe's population, culminated in the Peace of Westphalia treaties signed on October 24, 1648. These agreements formalized cuius regio, eius religio—affirming rulers' rights to determine their territories' religions—and established non-intervention norms, granting states exclusive internal sovereignty while recognizing territorial integrity against imperial or papal overreach.^[59]^[60] Complementing these developments, mercantilist policies from the mid-16th century onward bolstered state capacity by directing economic activity toward bullion accumulation, colonial ventures, and trade protections, which generated revenues for permanent bureaucracies and navies without feudal intermediaries. Examples include Spain's unification under Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, which centralized power through the Reconquista and expulsion of rival authorities, and France's progression toward absolutism under Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), who exemplified the nation-state's ability to project unified power internally and externally. This model spread across Europe, institutionalizing power dynamics around bordered sovereignty rather than personal or universal allegiances, laying foundations for modern interstate competition.^[61]

20th Century Ideological Conflicts

The 20th century featured profound ideological clashes that fundamentally altered political power dynamics, pitting liberal democratic capitalism against totalitarian ideologies like communism and fascism. These conflicts arose amid economic upheavals, world wars, and the collapse of empires, leading to the consolidation of power in ideologically driven states and the emergence of bipolar global rivalry. Communism, originating from the Bolshevik seizure of power in Russia on October 25, 1917 (Julian calendar), established the Soviet Union as the first state to implement Marxist-Leninist principles, rejecting private property and promoting class struggle, which inspired revolutionary movements worldwide but also triggered internal civil war and Russia's withdrawal from World War I via the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918.^[62] Fascism emerged as a nationalist, authoritarian counterforce, with Benito Mussolini founding the Fascist Party in Italy and marching on Rome to seize power on October 28, 1922, emphasizing corporatism, anti-communism, and state control over society to restore order after post-World War I instability.^[63] In Germany, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazis) capitalized on the Weimar Republic's economic crises and Versailles Treaty humiliations, gaining electoral support and appointing Hitler as chancellor on January 30, 1933, before consolidating totalitarian rule through the Enabling Act.^[64] World War II (1939–1945) crystallized these ideological tensions into total war, as fascist Axis powers—led by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy—sought expansionist dominance against the Allied coalition, including democratic capitalist states like the United States and United Kingdom, alongside the communist Soviet Union after Germany's invasion in June 1941. The war resulted in approximately 70–85 million deaths, with fascist regimes perpetrating systematic genocides, including the Holocaust that murdered 6 million Jews, as part of racial purification policies.^[65] Allied victory dismantled fascist governments, but the wartime alliance between the capitalist West and communist East fractured rapidly, yielding a bipolar world order where the United States and Soviet Union emerged as superpowers commanding vast military and ideological spheres. This shift empowered ideological blocs: NATO formed in 1949 under U.S. leadership to counter Soviet expansion, while the Warsaw Pact solidified Eastern Bloc control in 1955.^[66] The Cold War (roughly 1947–1991) embodied the core ideological antagonism between capitalism—characterized by private enterprise, individual rights, and market-driven economies—and communism, which enforced state ownership, one-party rule, and suppression of dissent. These systems proved incompatible, as capitalist reliance on free markets clashed with communist central planning and export of revolution, leading to proxy conflicts like the Korean War (1950–1953) and Vietnam War (1955–1975), where superpowers vied for influence without direct confrontation.^[67] Totalitarian regimes under both fascism and communism inflicted massive democide—government-sponsored killings outside war—with estimates of 169 million victims in the century, the majority under communist states like the USSR (around 62 million under Stalin alone) through purges, famines, and gulags, and Nazi Germany (21 million).^[65] These conflicts eroded colonial empires, accelerating decolonization—e.g., India's independence in 1947 and African waves in the 1960s—as ideological competition fueled anti-imperial insurgencies, though newly independent states often aligned with one bloc, reinforcing global power fragmentation along ideological lines. Power dynamics evolved through elite ideological control: communist parties monopolized authority via purges (e.g., Stalin's Great Purge, 1936–1938, eliminating rivals), while fascist leaders cultivated cults of personality backed by paramilitary forces. The ideological fervor justified expansionism—Soviet spheres in Eastern Europe post-1945 and Nazi Lebensraum policies—altering alliances and institutions like the United Nations, founded in 1945 to mediate but often paralyzed by veto powers. Ultimately, these struggles highlighted causal realities of ideology in power: totalitarian systems enabled rapid mobilization but bred inefficiency and repression, contributing to communism's collapse by 1991, whereas capitalism's adaptability sustained Western hegemony amid internal democratic checks.^[68]

Operational Mechanisms

Elite Selection and Circulation

In elite theory, selection into political power structures involves mechanisms that filter individuals based on attributes such as socioeconomic background, education, and professional networks, often favoring those from established strata despite formal meritocratic claims. Vilfredo Pareto described this as part of the "circulation of elites," where governing classes rise through superior "residues"—psychological predispositions toward innovation (Class I, foxes, emphasizing cunning) or conservation (Class II, lions, emphasizing force)—but decay over time, leading to replacement by more adaptive groups.^[69] Pareto argued that elites inevitably ossify, becoming complacent and reliant on force without cunning, prompting their overthrow by vigorous challengers, as seen historically in regime changes rather than mass uprisings.^[70] This process ensures no elite endures indefinitely, though circulation can be gradual or abrupt, influenced by external pressures like economic shifts or internal rivalries.^[71] Empirical studies of selection reveal patterned recruitment favoring organizational capital and elite credentials over broad populism. In parliamentary systems, career trajectories into legislatures often traverse similar elite tracks—such as civil service, corporate leadership, or party apparatuses—creating "revolving doors" that sustain continuity rather than radical turnover.^[72] For example, in the United States, roughly one-third of congressional members hail from elite universities like Harvard or Yale, correlating with legislative behaviors such as higher bill sponsorship rates, though this overrepresentation (versus the general population's <1% from such institutions) underscores barriers like campaign costs exceeding $1 million per House race in 2022.^[73] Globally, data from European parliaments show politicians disproportionately from upper-class origins, with private education rates 5-7 times the national average, channeling aspirants through selective pipelines that prioritize familial wealth and connections.^[74] Party patronage further structures selection, appointing allies to key posts and filtering out dissenters, as evidenced in systems where electoral rules like proportional representation increase intra-party elite mobility but entrench incumbents.^[75] Circulation manifests differently across regimes: in democracies, it proceeds via electoral competition and term limits, yielding moderate turnover—U.S. House incumbency re-election rates averaged 90% from 1990-2020—yet preserving core elite traits through co-optation of challengers. In autocracies, purges accelerate replacement, as in China's 2012-2017 anti-corruption campaign, which ousted over 1.4 million officials, ostensibly refreshing the elite but consolidating power around loyalists. Scholarly analyses indicate limited true circulation in consolidated democracies, where elite similarity across generations (e.g., 70-80% career bureaucrats or lawyers in Western cabinets) reflects institutional inertia over Pareto's predicted dynamism, challenging claims of fluid mobility.^[76] Disruptions like economic crises can force faster circulation, as intra-elite competition intensifies, sorting ambitious actors into power while frustrating others, per structural models linking elite overproduction to instability.^[77] Overall, while selection mechanisms ostensibly reward competence, evidence points to self-reinforcing networks that slow circulation, sustaining elite dominance unless exogenous shocks intervene.

Institutional Constraints

Institutional constraints encompass formal legal and structural mechanisms designed to limit the arbitrary exercise of political power, including constitutional divisions of authority, independent judiciaries, bureaucratic procedures, and adherence to the rule of law. These mechanisms aim to prevent concentration of power in any single actor or branch by enforcing checks, balances, and predictable rules that transcend individual leaders or transient majorities.^[78] In practice, they channel power dynamics through predefined paths, reducing opportunities for unilateral action while promoting accountability and continuity.^[79] Separation of powers represents a core institutional constraint, dividing government functions among legislative, executive, and judicial branches to inhibit dominance by any one. In the United States, for instance, Congress holds legislative authority, the president executes laws subject to veto overrides, and courts exercise judicial review to invalidate unconstitutional actions, as established in cases like Marbury v. Madison (1803). Empirical studies indicate this framework constrains executive unilateralism, with legislatures effectively checking presidents through budgetary controls and confirmation powers, though effectiveness varies with partisan alignment.^[80]^[81] Bureaucratic structures further impose inertia on leaders, as career civil servants in agencies like the U.S. federal bureaucracy resist politicized directives through expertise, procedural norms, and legal safeguards, often slowing or modifying policy implementation.^[82] This "bureaucratic politics" model highlights how internal agency dynamics and statutory mandates limit leaders' discretion, evidenced by resistance to executive overhauls in national security contexts.^[83] The rule of law reinforces these constraints by subjecting all officials to general, prospective laws rather than personal fiat, curbing authoritarian tendencies through enforceable limits on state authority. Cross-national evidence shows that robust judicial independence correlates with reduced executive overreach, as courts invalidate policies violating constitutional bounds, though political capture can undermine this in competitive environments.^[84]^[85] However, institutional erosion occurs when distributional pressures enable outsiders to dismantle checks, as seen in democratic backsliding where weakened legislatures and courts facilitate executive consolidation.^[86] Overall, while these constraints foster stability in consolidated democracies, their durability depends on enforcement mechanisms and resistance to partisan subversion.^[87]

Informal Networks and Corruption

Informal networks in political power dynamics encompass personal relationships, including kinship, friendships, alumni affiliations, and shared ideological or economic interests, that enable influence over policy, appointments, and resource distribution outside formal institutional channels. These networks often rely on reciprocity and trust rather than transparent procedures, allowing elites to maintain control by favoring loyal allies over merit-based selection. For instance, trust-based corruption networks, as analyzed in comparative studies of Sicilian and Hong Kong mafias, demonstrate how dense interpersonal ties sustain illicit exchanges by reducing the risk of betrayal and facilitating coordination in corrupt acts.^[88] Such dynamics undermine accountability, as decisions appear legitimate through informal endorsements rather than public scrutiny. Corruption within these networks manifests as the abuse of entrusted power for private benefit, frequently through cronyism—favoring business or political associates—and nepotism—prioritizing family members in public roles. Empirical research across public-sector organizations shows that cronyism and nepotism correlate with reduced economic performance, including lower productivity and inefficient resource allocation, as competent personnel are sidelined in favor of connected individuals.^[89] A study of family businesses and public auditing in Turkey found these practices erode organizational trust, leading to distorted decision-making and heightened employee dissatisfaction.^[90] In networked corruption, actors leverage informal ties to embed corrupt behaviors systemically, often manipulating formal rules to legitimize gains, as seen in analyses of elite capture in developing economies.^[91] Global evidence highlights the prevalence of such corruption, with Transparency International's 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index scoring 180 countries on perceived public-sector corruption from 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean); over two-thirds fell below the 50 midpoint, reflecting entrenched informal practices like bribery and patronage that distort power equilibria.^[92] The index aggregates perceptions from experts and business executives across multiple surveys, providing a composite measure though reliant on subjective assessments rather than direct audits.^[93] In regions like the Middle East and North Africa, informal networks exacerbate corruption by normalizing practices such as wasta (favoritism), where perceptions of widespread graft further entrench elite dominance.^[94] These mechanisms persist because informal networks offer resilience against formal anti-corruption efforts; for example, local leaders in China have used personal ties to navigate policy tourism and evade scrutiny post-anti-corruption campaigns initiated in 2012.^[95] Studies emphasize that addressing networked corruption requires targeting both supply (e.g., bribe payers) and demand sides, as isolated prosecutions fail against embedded trust structures.^[91] Ultimately, unchecked informal networks concentrate power among narrow groups, fostering inequality and policy biases toward insiders, as evidenced by cross-country analyses linking cronyism to stalled meritocratic reforms.^[96]

Modern Influences

Economic Globalization

Economic globalization, characterized by the expansion of international trade, capital flows, and multinational production networks since the post-World War II era, has significantly altered political power dynamics by diminishing the autonomy of national governments relative to global market forces and non-state actors. From 1950 to 2020, global merchandise trade as a share of GDP rose from about 24% to over 50%, enabling firms to relocate operations and investments across borders with minimal friction.^[97] This integration compels states to compete for foreign direct investment (FDI), often prioritizing investor-friendly policies such as tax reductions and labor market deregulation over domestic redistributive goals, thereby transferring de facto decision-making power to corporate executives and financial markets.^[98] Capital mobility exemplifies this shift, as high levels of cross-border financial flows—reaching $12 trillion in gross annual transactions by 2019—impose structural constraints on state policy choices. Governments face "exit threats" from investors who can swiftly withdraw funds in response to unfavorable regulations, limiting fiscal autonomy and forcing convergence toward market-oriented reforms; empirical studies show that countries with greater capital openness exhibit reduced public spending on welfare and heightened sensitivity to international bond markets.^[99] ^[100] For instance, during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, mobile capital outflows amplified vulnerabilities, compelling affected states like Thailand and Indonesia to adopt IMF-mandated austerity measures that prioritized creditor interests over national priorities.^[101] Multinational corporations (MNCs) further erode national sovereignty by leveraging their scale and mobility to influence host-country politics through lobbying and strategic investments. In the United States, MNCs spent over $3 billion on federal lobbying between 1998 and 2019, correlating with policies favoring offshoring and intellectual property protections that enhance corporate leverage over labor and regulation.^[102] Globally, MNCs control approximately 80% of world trade through intra-firm transactions, allowing them to arbitrage regulatory differences and bypass state controls, as seen in tax avoidance strategies that deprive governments of up to $600 billion annually in revenue.^[103] This dynamic concentrates power among a transnational elite, where corporate boards and financial institutions dictate terms that states must accommodate to sustain growth, often at the expense of local democratic accountability.^[104] International organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) reinforce these trends by embedding globalization's rules into binding commitments that override unilateral state actions. WTO dispute settlements have resolved over 600 cases since 1995, frequently ruling against protectionist measures and compelling compliance, as in the 2000-2003 U.S.-EU steel tariffs dispute where retaliatory sanctions pressured policy reversal.^[105] Similarly, IMF lending programs, conditional on structural adjustments, have shaped fiscal policies in over 100 countries since the 1980s, prioritizing liberalization and privatization to restore investor confidence, though critics note these conditions often exacerbate inequality without guaranteed growth.^[106] While proponents argue such mechanisms foster stability through interdependence, evidence indicates they amplify power asymmetries, favoring creditor nations and MNCs over debtor states in the Global South.^[107] These processes have fueled political backlashes, including populist movements that decry globalization's role in wage stagnation and job displacement; for example, import competition from China post-2001 WTO accession contributed to the loss of 2-2.4 million U.S. manufacturing jobs by 2011, correlating with shifts toward protectionist voting patterns.^[108] Yet, despite recent deglobalization pressures like supply chain disruptions from the 2020-2022 COVID-19 pandemic, core power dynamics persist, with global value chains still accounting for 70% of international trade and MNCs retaining veto-like influence over national strategies.^[109] Overall, economic globalization redistributes political authority upward and outward, embedding market logic into governance while challenging traditional state-centric models of power.^[110]

Technological Disruption

Digital platforms have decentralized information dissemination, enabling rapid political mobilization outside traditional media gatekeepers and challenging established power structures. During the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, social media facilitated coordination among protesters in Egypt and Tunisia, contributing to the ouster of long-standing leaders, though subsequent instability highlighted limits to such tech-driven change.^[111] Empirical analyses indicate that social media use correlates with increased online political participation, as it reduces barriers to engagement by allowing real-time sharing and networking unbound by geography.^[112] In democratic contexts, platforms like Twitter amplified outsider campaigns, such as Donald Trump's 2016 U.S. presidential bid, where direct voter outreach bypassed elite media filters and mobilized grassroots support.^[113] However, this disruption often amplifies polarization, as algorithms prioritize engaging content over balanced discourse, fostering echo chambers that entrench ideological divides rather than consensus.^[114] Authoritarian regimes have leveraged surveillance technologies to consolidate power, inverting tech's democratizing potential into tools of repression. China's deployment of facial recognition and the social credit system, operational since 2014 pilots and nationwide by 2020, monitors over 1.4 billion citizens to enforce compliance, rewarding or penalizing behavior via data analytics.^[115] This model, exported to over 80 countries via Belt and Road initiatives, equips non-democratic states with scalable control mechanisms, including AI-driven predictive policing that preempts dissent.^[116] Studies show such systems enhance regime stability by targeting opposition selectively, though they risk overreach and public backlash when perceived as invasive.^[117] In contrast to Western narratives emphasizing privacy erosion in democracies, empirical evidence underscores that autocracies derive asymmetric gains, as centralized data access aligns with top-down governance absent electoral accountability.^[118] Emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and cyber capabilities further reshape interstate power balances, favoring agile actors with superior computational resources. AI applications in governance, such as predictive analytics for policy forecasting, enable efficient resource allocation in states like Singapore, but in competitive contexts, they exacerbate geopolitical rivalries, with the U.S. and China investing over $100 billion combined in AI by 2023 to dominate military and economic edges.^[119] Cyber operations, exemplified by state-sponsored attacks like Russia's 2016 interference in U.S. elections via disinformation and the 2020 SolarWinds hack affecting 18,000 entities, allow influence projection at low kinetic cost, eroding adversaries' cohesion without direct confrontation.^[120]^[121] Private tech firms amplify this shift, as Big Tech's monopoly on data and algorithms influences policy agendas, potentially tilting great power competition toward entities controlling innovation pipelines.^[122] Overall, these disruptions favor adaptive regimes over rigid institutions, with outcomes hinging on technological sovereignty rather than ideological purity.^[123]

Cultural and Identity Factors

Cultural homogeneity within political communities facilitates the consolidation and exercise of power by promoting interpersonal trust and collective action, which underpin institutional legitimacy and policy implementation. Empirical research demonstrates that societies with aligned cultural values exhibit higher levels of social capital, enabling elites to garner broader support and mitigate internal challenges to authority. For instance, metrics from the World Values Survey reveal correlations between cultural similarity and stronger civic engagement, as shared norms reduce transaction costs in coordination and enforcement. In contrast, cultural fragmentation introduces barriers to unified power projection, as divergent identities foster competing loyalties that dilute centralized control. Identity politics exacerbates these tensions in modern democracies by framing power contests around ascriptive group characteristics such as ethnicity, gender, and religion, often prioritizing representational gains over meritocratic or ideological criteria. Robert Putnam's 2007 analysis of over 30,000 U.S. respondents across diverse locales found that greater ethnic diversity correlates with a "hunker down" effect: residents of all backgrounds report 10-20% lower trust in neighbors, reduced volunteering, and diminished political efficacy, persisting even after controlling for socioeconomic factors.^[124] This erosion of generalized trust hampers cross-group alliances essential for stable coalitions, as evidenced by heightened polarization in diverse polities where identity-based voting blocs, comprising up to 40% of electorates in recent U.S. and European surveys, fragment majoritarian power.^[125] While identity mobilization has elevated certain subgroups into elite positions—such as through quotas increasing minority parliamentary seats by 15-25% in countries like India and South Africa since the 1990s—it often entrenches zero-sum competitions, weakening overarching national authority.^[126] Nationalism counters multicultural diffusion by reasserting cultural unity as a basis for power legitimacy, particularly in response to globalization-induced identity dilution. Data from the European Social Survey (2018-2022 waves) indicate that nations with robust national identity indices, such as Poland and Hungary, maintain higher government approval ratings (averaging 55-65%) amid diversity pressures, compared to more multicultural states like Sweden (35-45%), where cultural policy disputes have fueled populist surges reallocating power from supranational to sovereign institutions. This dynamic underscores causal realism: cultural convergence sustains power equilibria by aligning elite incentives with popular sentiments, whereas imposed multiculturalism, absent assimilation mechanisms, invites backlash that redistributes influence toward ethno-cultural majorities, as seen in the 2015-2024 electoral gains of identity-focused parties across 12 EU states, capturing 20-30% of votes on average.^[127] Such shifts highlight how identity factors, when unmediated by shared civic narratives, propel volatile power realignments rather than egalitarian stability.

Empirical Case Studies

Democratic Power in the United States

The United States functions as a constitutional republic with democratic mechanisms, including periodic elections for the presidency, Congress, and state offices, designed to distribute power across executive, legislative, and judicial branches while incorporating checks and balances. Federalism further disperses authority between national and state levels, theoretically preventing concentration in any single entity. However, empirical analyses indicate that policy outcomes disproportionately reflect preferences of economic elites and organized business interests rather than average citizens, suggesting oligarchic tendencies within the democratic framework.^[3] Historical patterns of partisan control illustrate fluctuating but often divided governance. From 1955 to 1995, Democrats maintained House majorities for 40 years, reflecting voter alignments amid post-World War II economic expansion and civil rights shifts, while Senate control oscillated more frequently.^[128] Unified party control of the presidency and both congressional chambers occurred in only about one-third of Congresses since 1900, with Republicans achieving it briefly in 2003–2007 and 2017–2019 before regaining it after the 2024 elections.^[129] As of October 2025, Republicans hold the presidency under Donald J. Trump, who issued 26 executive orders in his first days of the second term, alongside slim majorities in the House (retained from prior cycles) and Senate, enabling legislative agendas like tariff implementations challenged in courts.^[130] ^[131] The Supreme Court maintains a 6–3 conservative majority, influencing dynamics through rulings expanding executive authority and scrutinizing agency independence.^[132] The administrative state exerts enduring influence, as federal agencies implement regulations with quasi-legislative power derived from congressional delegations often dating decades back. Comprising millions of civil servants, the bureaucracy demonstrates continuity across administrations, with studies showing resistance to policy reversals via information asymmetries and entrenched procedures.^[133] ^[134] Trump's second-term initiatives, including personnel reforms to politicize or reduce the workforce, aim to realign this apparatus toward electoral mandates, contrasting prior conservative deference to agency autonomy.^[135] This persistence underscores causal realities: elected officials delegate implementation to experts, fostering insulation from voter preferences and enabling elite-driven policymaking. Economic interests amplify through campaign finance and lobbying, where expenditures on the latter exceed contributions fivefold at federal levels.^[136] Concentrated donations correlate with reduced legislative efforts on contentious issues, granting donors access and shaping outcomes inefficiently, as firms leverage contributions for policy favors.^[137] ^[138] Lobbyists, often former officials, strategically pair donations with advocacy, with data from 2023–2024 cycles revealing billions funneled to incumbents across parties, blurring ideological lines in favor of business alignments.^[139] Media outlets further skew dynamics via partisan framing, with studies documenting left-leaning bias in mainstream coverage that polarizes audiences and erodes trust.^[140] Exposure shapes voting and opinions, yet one-sided diets reinforce extremes, as evidenced by 2024 analyses where Trump-related perceptions trumped factual corrections among partisans.^[141] ^[142] This informational asymmetry empowers narrative controllers, often aligned with institutional elites, over direct democratic inputs, though social media introduces volatility by amplifying populist challenges. Overall, while elections provide periodic resets, power accrues to networks transcending parties, prioritizing elite consensus on foreign policy and fiscal orthodoxy amid domestic divisions.^[3]

Supranational Dynamics in the European Union

The European Union operates as a supranational entity where member states have delegated authority in domains such as the single market, competition policy, and monetary union for eurozone participants, enabling collective decision-making that overrides national vetoes in specified areas. The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union delineates exclusive EU competencies in customs union and monetary policy, shared competencies in internal market and environment, and supporting roles in education and culture, with the principle of subsidiarity mandating action at the most local level feasible.^[143] The European Commission, as the supranational executive, holds the exclusive right to initiate legislation, enforces compliance through infringement proceedings, and manages the budget, wielding influence through a staff of approximately 32,000 civil servants as of 2023.^[144] Decision-making balances supranational and intergovernmental elements, with the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 expanding qualified majority voting (QMV) in the Council of the European Union to over 80 policy areas, requiring approval by 55% of member states representing at least 65% of the EU population. This shift from unanimity reduces blocking power, facilitating integration but amplifying the voice of larger states like Germany and France, which together account for about 36% of EU GDP and can sway outcomes. The European Parliament, directly elected by 720 million citizens every five years, co-legislates under the ordinary legislative procedure alongside the Council, yet its powers remain limited in foreign policy and taxation, where unanimity persists.^[145] Supranational dynamics often generate tensions with national governments, as EU institutions impose uniform policies that clash with domestic priorities, exemplified by disputes over rule of law in Hungary and Poland. In 2018, the European Parliament invoked Article 7 against Poland for judicial reforms deemed to undermine independence, leading to withheld cohesion funds totaling €36 billion in potential cuts by 2027; similar measures against Hungary in 2022 froze €22 billion from the recovery fund until compliance with anti-corruption benchmarks. These actions highlight the Commission's role in conditioning financial transfers on adherence to EU values, interpreted by critics as supranational coercion eroding fiscal sovereignty. Brexit in 2020, following the 2016 referendum where 52% of UK voters favored exit amid grievances over migration quotas and regulatory overreach, underscored electoral backlash against perceived sovereignty dilution.^[146] The EU's democratic deficit arises from the Commission's insulation from direct electoral accountability—its president is selected by the European Council and approved by Parliament—contrasting with national parliaments' responsiveness, fostering perceptions of unaccountable technocracy. Empirical analyses indicate that integration correlates with declining national democratic satisfaction in high-exposure sectors, as supranational rules constrain policy experimentation, with Euroskeptic parties gaining 20-25% of seats in the 2024 European Parliament elections.^[147]^[148] Recent crises have accelerated centralization: the 2020 NextGenerationEU recovery instrument mobilized €806.9 billion in grants and loans, including shared borrowing unprecedented in EU history, shifting fiscal powers toward Brussels via conditionalities tied to reforms. The European Green Deal, launched in 2019, commits to net-zero emissions by 2050 through binding targets like a 55% GHG reduction by 2030, enforced by the Commission via the 2023 Emissions Trading System expansion and carbon border adjustments, imposing compliance costs estimated at €1 trillion annually on member economies. These mechanisms enhance supranational leverage but provoke resistance, as seen in farmer protests across France, Germany, and Poland in 2024 against nitrogen regulations and subsidy cuts, reflecting causal tensions between uniform mandates and localized economic realities.^[149]^[150]

Authoritarian Consolidation in China

Under Xi Jinping's leadership, which began with his ascension to General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission in November 2012, power has centralized within the party apparatus, reversing post-Mao decentralization efforts.^[151] This process involved leveraging the anti-corruption campaign launched in late 2012, which by 2021 had investigated over 4.7 million CCP members and disciplined 638,000 in that year alone, targeting high-level officials including potential rivals like Zhou Yongkang and military figures to eliminate factional threats and enforce loyalty.^[152] While officially aimed at rooting out graft, the campaign has functioned as a mechanism for purging disloyal elements, with investigations often citing "serious violations of party discipline" without public trials, consolidating Xi's dominance over the Politburo and state bureaucracy.^[153] A pivotal institutional shift occurred in March 2018, when the National People's Congress amended the constitution to abolish the two-term limit on the presidency, previously set in 1982 to prevent lifelong rule akin to Mao Zedong's era, enabling Xi to seek indefinite terms.^[154] This change aligned the presidency with Xi's unchallenged CCP general secretary role, formalized further at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, where he secured a third term and appointed loyalists to the Politburo Standing Committee, sidelining collective leadership norms established under Deng Xiaoping.^[151] Concurrently, Xi has intensified control over the People's Liberation Army (PLA) through repeated purges; between 2023 and October 2025, at least nine senior generals, including key rocket force commanders, were expelled for corruption and disloyalty, representing the largest such action since Mao's time and ensuring direct command loyalty amid modernization drives.^[155]^[156] Surveillance infrastructure has underpinned this consolidation, with the social credit system—outlined by the State Council in 2014 and expanded through 2025—integrating data from over 600 million CCTV cameras, facial recognition, and behavioral metrics to enforce compliance via blacklists restricting travel, finance, and employment for over 28 million individuals by 2020.^[157]^[158] Regional policies exemplify enforcement: In Hong Kong, the June 30, 2020, National Security Law, imposed by Beijing, criminalized secession, subversion, and collusion, leading to over 10,000 arrests by 2023, the shuttering of pro-democracy media like Apple Daily, and electoral reforms ensuring only "patriots" govern, fundamentally curtailing judicial independence and assembly rights.^[159]^[160] In Xinjiang, policies since 2017 have detained over one million Uyghurs and other Muslims in internment facilities for "re-education," involving forced labor and cultural assimilation, as documented in a 2022 UN assessment citing credible allegations of torture and arbitrary detention, though Chinese authorities maintain these are voluntary vocational centers to combat extremism.^[161]^[162] By October 2025, these measures have entrenched CCP primacy over state functions, with Xi's "Thought" enshrined in the constitution and party cells embedded in private firms, fostering a system where economic policies like "common prosperity" reinforce political control by curbing private sector autonomy.^[163] Critics, including reports from Western think tanks, argue this reversion to personalist rule risks policy rigidity and instability, as evidenced by the abrupt end to zero-COVID lockdowns in December 2022 amid public unrest, yet empirical outcomes show sustained GDP growth above 5% annually through 2024, attributed by Beijing to centralized decision-making.^[164]^[153] This model prioritizes regime stability over pluralism, with power dynamics hinging on Xi's unchallenged authority rather than institutional checks.

Current Trends and Shifts

Resurgence of Populism

The resurgence of populism in the 21st century, particularly since the 2008 global financial crisis, has manifested as a political strategy emphasizing anti-elite rhetoric, direct appeals to "the people" against perceived corrupt establishments, and skepticism toward supranational institutions. This trend accelerated post-crisis, with populist vote shares in Western democracies rising notably; for instance, right-wing populist parties in Europe increased their average electoral support from around 7% before 2010 to over 10% in subsequent national elections by 2022.^[165] Secular economic pressures, including automation and trade-induced job losses in manufacturing sectors, contributed to this shift, as low-skilled workers faced wage stagnation and displacement, fostering resentment toward globalization's beneficiaries.^[166] Empirical analyses link these dynamics to heightened income inequality, with countries experiencing Gini coefficient rises above 0.3 correlating with populist surges, though causation involves interplay with cultural factors rather than economics alone.^[167] Key electoral milestones underscore the phenomenon's momentum. In the United States, Donald Trump's 2016 presidential victory, securing 304 electoral votes despite losing the popular vote by 2.1 percentage points, capitalized on Rust Belt discontent over deindustrialization.^[168] Similarly, the United Kingdom's 2016 Brexit referendum passed with 51.9% approval, driven by immigration concerns and elite distrust, leading to the UK's formal EU exit on January 31, 2020. In Europe, populist formations formed governments in Hungary (Fidesz since 2010, commanding 54% of seats in 2022 parliament) and Italy (Brothers of Italy winning 26% in 2022 elections under Giorgia Meloni).^[169] By 2024-2025, far-right populists gained further ground in European Parliament elections, with parties like Germany's AfD polling at 20% nationally amid migration debates, and similar advances in France and the Netherlands.^[170] Causal drivers extend beyond economics to identity and institutional erosion. Rapid immigration inflows, such as Europe's 2015-2016 migrant crisis involving over 1 million arrivals, amplified nativist sentiments, with studies showing spatial proximity to influxes boosting populist support by 1-2 percentage points per 1% local population increase.^[108] Distrust in elites, exacerbated by corruption scandals and perceived policy failures (e.g., bailouts favoring banks over households post-2008), eroded faith in traditional parties, as evidenced by surveys indicating 60-70% dissatisfaction with representative democracy in affected nations by 2017.^[171] Social media's role in amplifying unfiltered grievances further propelled this, enabling direct mobilization outside legacy media, though mainstream analyses often underemphasize cultural backlash relative to economic narratives due to institutional biases favoring egalitarian interpretations.^[172] While populism challenges entrenched power, its longevity depends on addressing underlying grievances without devolving into authoritarianism, as seen in varying governance outcomes from Poland to Brazil.^[173]

Decline of Multilateralism

The decline of multilateralism refers to the waning influence and effectiveness of institutions designed for broad international cooperation, such as the United Nations (UN), World Trade Organization (WTO), and World Health Organization (WHO), in addressing global challenges. Established in the post-World War II era to promote collective security, trade liberalization, and shared governance, these bodies have faced increasing paralysis due to divergent national interests, enforcement weaknesses, and geopolitical rivalries. By the 2020s, participation in multilateral forums remained steady in nominal terms from 2013 to 2023, but substantive outcomes diminished, with consensus-building hampered on issues like trade, climate, and security.^[174] A primary indicator of this decline is the protracted failure of the WTO's Doha Development Round, launched in 2001 to reduce trade barriers and aid developing nations, which collapsed after 14 years of negotiations without agreement, effectively ending in 2015. The round's stagnation stemmed from irreconcilable demands, including agricultural subsidies in developed countries and industrial market access for emerging economies, leading to no new multilateral tariff reductions. Compounding this, the WTO's Appellate Body became non-functional in December 2019 after the United States blocked appointments, citing judicial overreach, resulting in over 50 unresolved disputes by 2024 and rendering the dispute settlement mechanism ineffective.^[175]^[176]^[176] In security and health domains, multilateral responses to crises have similarly faltered. The UN Security Council's inability to act decisively on Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, vetoed by permanent members, exemplified gridlock, while post-COVID-19 assessments revealed fragmented global cooperation, with countries prioritizing domestic vaccine stockpiles over equitable distribution via COVAX. The WHO's handling of the pandemic, criticized for delayed warnings and reliance on Chinese data, prompted the United States to withdraw funding and membership in 2020 under President Trump, rejoining under Biden in 2021, only for renewed withdrawal announcements in early 2025 amid accusations of inefficiency. Public trust in the UN eroded, with surveys indicating a legitimacy crisis by 2025, as authoritarian regimes and rising powers challenged Western-dominated norms.^[177]^[178]^[179] This erosion has accelerated a pivot toward bilateralism and minilateralism, where smaller, flexible groupings achieve targeted outcomes bypassing multilateral bureaucracy. Examples include the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020, which replaced the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership (from which the US withdrew in 2017), and security minilaterals like the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) among the US, Japan, India, and Australia, formalized in 2021 for Indo-Pacific stability. Minilateral formats, involving 3-10 states, offer speed and enforceability lacking in universal bodies, as seen in AUKUS (2021) for submarine technology sharing among Australia, the UK, and US. Such shifts reflect causal realities: multilateralism's consensus requirements amplify veto power asymmetries, favoring powerful states while diluting sovereignty for weaker ones, leading to preference for ad hoc alliances amid US-China competition.^[180]^[181]^[182] Geopolitical factors, including the resurgence of nationalism and postcolonial critiques of Western hegemony, further undermine multilateralism. The US withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement in 2020 (effective 2021) and its 2025 reiteration under a second Trump term highlighted skepticism toward non-binding commitments imposing economic costs without reciprocal enforcement. Similarly, exits from the Iran nuclear deal (2018) underscored distrust in multilateral verification regimes. These trends, evident by 2025, signal not the death of cooperation but its reconfiguration into pragmatic, interest-aligned formats, as broad institutions struggle with enforcement deficits and mismatched incentives in a multipolar world.^[183]^[184]^[185]

Emerging Multipolar Order

The emerging multipolar order denotes a structural shift in global power distribution, characterized by the relative decline of U.S. unipolar dominance post-1991 and the ascent of alternative poles such as China, Russia, India, and regional blocs in the Global South. This transition reflects empirical indicators including economic rebalancing, where non-Western economies now account for a larger share of global GDP, and geopolitical realignments amid conflicts like Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and U.S.-China tensions over Taiwan. Analyses from security forums describe "multipolarization" as an ongoing diffusion of influence among multiple actors, challenging the post-Cold War liberal order without a singular hegemon.^[186]^[187] Economically, the BRICS grouping—originally Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—exemplifies this order's momentum through its 2024 expansion to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates, with partner countries like Vietnam and Indonesia enhancing its reach. The expanded BRICS+ represents approximately 45% of the world's population and over 35% of global GDP on a purchasing power parity (PPP) basis as of 2024, surpassing the G7's share in PPP terms. China's economy underscores this trend: its PPP GDP exceeded the U.S. figure since 2016, reaching an estimated 20-33% larger scale by 2024, driven by manufacturing output and domestic consumption, though nominal GDP trails the U.S. at about 64% of American levels. These shifts incentivize de-dollarization efforts, with Russia-China bilateral trade conducted over 90% in rubles and yuan by 2024, and BRICS nations exploring local-currency settlements and blockchain-based systems to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar, which still dominates 88% of global transactions per some estimates.^[188]^[189]^[190]^[191] Geopolitically, multipolarity manifests in competing alliances and military buildups. China's defense spending reached about 36% of U.S. levels in 2024, supporting naval expansion in the Indo-Pacific, while global military expenditure hit a record $2,718 billion, up 9.4% from 2023—the sharpest annual rise since the Cold War—fueled by European NATO increases and Middle Eastern procurements. Non-Western groupings like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS promote alternatives to U.S.-led institutions, with the Global South pursuing pragmatic neutrality, as seen in abstentions on UN votes regarding Ukraine. U.S. responses include pacts like AUKUS (2021) and the Quad, yet projections indicate emerging markets growing twice as fast as G7 economies by 2050, eroding Western-centric multilateralism.^[192]^[186]^[193] This order's consolidation raises causal questions about stability: while diffusion may mitigate over-reliance on one power, it risks intensified rivalry absent shared rules, as evidenced by stalled WTO reforms and fragmented supply chains. Proponents of multipolarity, including Russian articulations, frame it as a pathway to "global independence" from Western sanctions, though internal BRICS divisions—such as India-China border tensions—limit cohesion. Empirical data thus portray not a completed paradigm but a contested evolution, with U.S. strategic adaptations urged to align means with multipolar realities rather than presuming perpetual primacy.^[194]^[187]

Debates and Critiques

Validity of Egalitarian Assumptions

Egalitarian assumptions in political power dynamics posit that individuals are largely interchangeable in their capacity to exercise authority effectively, implying that equal distribution or random selection of power minimizes hierarchy and optimizes outcomes. This view underpins ideologies advocating for broad participatory democracy or quotas without regard for differential abilities. Empirical evidence from behavioral genetics challenges this by demonstrating significant heritability in traits essential for leadership, such as cognitive ability, extraversion, and openness, which correlate with political influence and decision-making efficacy. Twin studies across 19 measures of political ideology reveal that genetic factors explain about 40-60% of variance, indicating that ideological predispositions—and by extension, orientations toward power—are not environmentally malleable to the degree egalitarians assume.^[195] ^[196] Further scrutiny arises from research on leadership attainment itself, where genome-wide association studies estimate SNP-based heritability for holding leadership positions at 3-9%, even after controlling for socioeconomic factors.^[197] These findings extend to personality traits linked to political roles: for instance, conscientiousness and low neuroticism, which predict executive performance, show heritabilities of 40-50% via twin designs.^[198] Such data refute the notion of equipotentiality, as innate variances in traits like intelligence—heritability around 50-80% in adulthood—systematically influence who rises to power in competitive environments, from corporate boards to national legislatures.^[199] Ignoring these leads to inefficiencies, as observed in experimental simulations where merit-based hierarchies outperform equalized groups in resource allocation tasks by 20-30% on average.^[200] Historically and evolutionarily, egalitarian structures prevailed in small-scale hunter-gatherer bands but gave way to hierarchies with the Neolithic Revolution around 10,000 BCE, as population growth and technological demands favored specialization based on ability differentials rather than consensus-driven leveling.^[201] Contemporary critiques highlight an "egalitarian fallacy," where assumptions of uniformity selectively dismiss biological group differences—such as sex-based variances in risk-taking or spatial reasoning—that affect power wielding, yet amplify them for favored narratives.^[202] In political contexts, this manifests in policies like affirmative action, which empirical meta-analyses show reduce overall competence in selected roles by prioritizing equality over efficacy, correlating with 5-15% drops in institutional performance metrics.^[203] Thus, while egalitarianism appeals to moral symmetry, causal realism demands acknowledging that power dynamics thrive on heterogeneous talents, rendering blanket equality assumptions empirically invalid for stable governance.

Effectiveness of Checks and Balances

The system of checks and balances, embedded in constitutional frameworks like that of the United States, distributes authority across legislative, executive, and judicial branches to prevent any single entity from dominating governance. This arrangement has historically curbed potential tyrannies by enabling mechanisms such as veto overrides, judicial review, and impeachment, which compel deliberation and compromise. For instance, the judiciary has invalidated over 170 federal laws since 1803 through exercises of judicial review, enforcing constitutional limits on legislative and executive actions. Despite these safeguards, empirical evidence indicates diminishing effectiveness amid partisan polarization and unified government control. Congress has overridden only 111 presidential vetoes out of more than 1,500 regular vetoes issued from 1789 to the present, yielding a success rate below 8%, which underscores the rarity of legislative triumphs over executive resistance.^[204] Impeachment, designed as a potent check on executive abuse, has convicted no U.S. president in Senate trials, as the required two-thirds majority proves elusive in divided or hyperpartisan contexts, rendering it more symbolic than constraining.^[205] Polarization exacerbates gridlock under divided government, where bicameralism, filibusters, and veto threats stall legislation, fostering policy inertia rather than balanced oversight. Studies of U.S. states reveal that stronger separation of powers correlates with reduced legislative productivity, as interbranch conflicts delay or block enactment of majority-preferred policies.^[206] Conversely, unified partisan control attenuates checks, permitting executive expansion via unilateral actions; historical data show presidential issuance of executive orders surging during crises, from 3,721 under Franklin D. Roosevelt amid the Great Depression to sustained elevations post-World War II, often bypassing congressional deliberation.^[207]^[208] Critiques highlight structural vulnerabilities, including wealth concentration enabling elite capture of branches and delegation of powers to unelected bureaucracies, which erode interbranch rivalry. In emerging democracies, empirical models demonstrate voters dismantling checks when organized elites bribe or influence politicians, favoring decisive rule over restraint to address immediate exigencies.^[209]^[210] While the framework has forestalled absolute tyranny, its reliance on virtuous actors and cross-branch independence falters against modern asymmetries, such as executive dominance in foreign affairs or information control, demanding adaptive reforms to sustain causal constraints on power accumulation.^[211]

Pathways to Resilient Governance

Resilient governance emerges from institutional designs that distribute authority to prevent monopolization of power and enable adaptation to disruptions, as evidenced by polycentric frameworks that incorporate multiple layers of decision-making. Polycentrism, involving overlapping jurisdictions like federal systems, fosters competition and redundancy, allowing local experimentation and reducing systemic vulnerabilities; for instance, U.S. federalism has historically buffered national crises through state-level responses, though coordination challenges persist.^[212]^[213] Separation of powers complements this by enforcing checks across branches, balancing static resilience—enduring core structures—against dynamic threats like executive overreach, as seen in constitutional doctrines that limit any single entity's dominance.^[214] These designs draw from historical precedents, such as Switzerland's cantonal federalism, which has sustained stability since 1848 by devolving powers amid linguistic and cultural diversity. A foundational pathway lies in upholding the rule of law through independent judiciaries and anti-corruption mechanisms, which ensure accountability and resource integrity during shocks. Low corruption levels correlate with effective crisis responses, as corrupt regimes lose an estimated $1-2 billion annually in resilience projects like water infrastructure, undermining public trust essential for compliance.^[215]^[216] Empirical analyses highlight that regimes with strong legal constraints on elites exhibit greater longevity, countering backsliding as in Asian cases where judicial interference eroded democratic durability.^[217] Institutional memory—codified lessons from prior events—further bolsters this, exemplified by India's Odisha state reducing cyclone fatalities from over 10,000 in 1999 to fewer than 50 in 2013 via refined protocols.^[215] Cultural and leadership pathways emphasize building societal trust and elite cohesion without co-optation, enabling adaptive governance over rigid hierarchies. High-quality leadership, characterized by competence and integrity, drives foresight and equitable policymaking, as in New Zealand's post-2019 Christchurch response prioritizing community engagement over top-down mandates.^[216] Diverse stakeholder networks and flexible policies, including regular institutional reviews every three years, enhance persistence, per studies of governance networks surviving budget shocks through broad advocacy.^[212] Civil society's role in early warning and service delivery amplifies resilience, though polarization risks necessitate balanced inclusion to avoid amplifying divisions, as observed in varied COVID-19 outcomes across decentralized systems like Vietnam versus centralized ones like Myanmar.^[215] Ultimately, these pathways prioritize causal mechanisms like feedback loops and equitable power distribution, privileging empirical endurance over ideological uniformity.

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(Market) power is (political) power! The pressure of declining ...
Aug 11, 2025 · Abstract. I study how the concentration of market power among a restricted set of corporates leads to a concentration of political power that ...
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[PDF] Power-Culture Trajectories and the Dynamics of Political Institutions
We outline a theory in which the interplay of the distribution of political power and cultural configurations lead to three distinct self-reinforcing paths of ...
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Aug 24, 2023 · Research indicates that powerful people are more likely to moralize, judge, and enforce strict moral standards on others while engaging in ...
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[PDF] Power Mismatch and Civil Conflict: An Empirical Investigation∗
Aug 17, 2023 · Abstract. This paper empirically shows that the imbalance between an ethnic group's political and military power is crucial to understand ...
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Max Weber's Power (Chapter 5)
Oct 25, 2017 · ... political power. Being proud of one's country is not enough. Prestige means that power is used within a code of honour. In a certain sense ...
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Power and theory: toward a multidimensional explanation of the ...
Oct 30, 2024 · ABSTRACT. What theories explain a dynamic political field and its outcome? Can we judiciously combine theories into a better hybrid explanation?
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Power and Authority – Introduction to Sociology
According to Max Weber, the three types of legitimate authority are traditional, rational-legal, and charismatic. Charismatic authority is relatively unstable ...<|separator|>
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What Is Soft Power? - CFR Education - Council on Foreign Relations
May 16, 2023 · First and foremost, experts argue that soft power is no substitute for hard power. ... Political scientist Joseph Nye Jr. coined the term smart ...
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Introduction. Elite Theory: Philosophical Challenges - PubMed Central
Feb 10, 2022 · Democratic elitism accepts the main premise of elite theory: 'no societies are governed by the people, by a majority; all societies, including ...
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THE RULING CLASS - Cambridge University Press & Assessment
As the. Marxian theory is his most serious competitor it is unfortunate that. Mosca pays so little attention to it and that he misunderstands or mis- represents ...
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Pareto's two types of elites: lions and foxes — Remains of the Day
Apr 9, 2017 · This is what he called the “circulation of elites”. When the current elite starts to decline, it is challenged and makes way for another. Pareto ...<|separator|>
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Iron law of oligarchy | Power Dynamics & Social Hierarchy | Britannica
The iron law of oligarchy contends that organizational democracy is an oxymoron. Although elite control makes internal democracy unsustainable, it is also said ...
[19]
The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills 1956
The power elite is composed of political, economic, and military men, but this instituted elite is frequently in some tension: it comes together only on certain ...
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Elite Influence on General Political Preferences - ScienceDirect.com
Layman et al. (2010: 342-343) provide empirical evidence that party activists tend to shift their political views to correspond with current party thinking.
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[PDF] Elites, political elites and social change in modern societies1
They found empirical evidence concerning the role played by the new technocrats in Chilean political elite, who were called as technopols (Dominguez, 1997; ...
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https://www.mises.org/mises-wire/vilfredo-pareto-return-libertarian-roots-elite-theory
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[PDF] Pluralism - Scholars at Harvard
An Approximation to the Concept. Pluralism is an interpretation of social diver- sity. It can be rendered as a cultural, political, or philosophical stance.
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Democracy: The Pluralist Perspective | Research Starters - EBSCO
The pluralist perspective acknowledges that democracy is inherently characterized by a variety of factions and socio-political groups.Sociology > Politics... · David Truman, Robert Dahl... · Collaboration, Competition...Missing: proponents definition
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Power in New Haven: A Reassessment of 'Who Governs?'
Jan 27, 2009 · Robert Dahl, who is the most influential of the pluralists, has attacked 'elitists' on two fronts: negatively, he has argued that they misperceive the nature ...
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[PDF] Robert A. Dahl: Questions, concepts, proving it David R. Mayhew
In his New Haven study, the neighborhood uprising against building metal houses showed that the '“slack” resources' of the system could, given the right ...
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[PDF] Elitism vs. Pluralism: Of Robert Dahl, the Working Middle Class Vote ...
Evidence for an elite democracy, as touched upon by Obama, would be that the masses become apathetic at the ballot box. On this note, the topic of pluralism and ...<|separator|>
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Who Really Ruled in Dahl's New Haven? - Who Rules America?
He concludes that the most important businesspeople in New Haven are not part of the local social elite. Score one for pluralism. But there are many ...
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Alternative Theories - Who Rules America?
In that regard, the two theories are more general than pluralism, state autonomy theory, and elite theory. Marxism was created by Karl Marx (1818-1883) and ...
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Karl Marx - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Aug 26, 2003 · For example, in The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels state that: “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the ...
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MARXISM AND CLASS CONFLICT - University of Hawaii System
... theory of class conflict that supersedes the Marxist view. It may be useful, therefore, to clarify the role of status within the helix. For Marx, status ...
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Antonio Gramsci - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Jan 13, 2023 · He employed the concept “hegemony” to describe a process of “intellectual and moral leadership” that embedded a ruling class across society. He ...
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Gramsci and hegemony - Powercube.net
The idea of a 'third face of power', or 'invisible power' has its roots partly, in Marxist thinking about the pervasive power of ideology, values and beliefs.
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Critical Theory (Frankfurt School)
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A Critique of Marxism - Who Rules America?
The disregard for representative democracy on the part of some Marxists (at the least, Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists, Maoists) leads to a disruptive and extra- ...
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Major Criticisms of Marxism - Simply Psychology
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Political Realism in International Relations
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[PDF] Is Anybody Still a Realist? - Princeton University
Realism remains the primary or alternative theory in virtually every major book and article addressing general theories of world politics, particularly in ...
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Chapter 3: An Institutional View of Politics - FHSU Digital Press
This approach would, for example, consider the best arrangements for legislative, executive, and judicial powers of government. This view of politics is very ...
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Jan 6, 2022 · A final approach, which we call institutionalized power, examines how institutions instantiate power apart from any particular, episodic ...
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The Role of Institutional Approach in Comparative Politics
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Institutionalism as a Theory for Understanding Policy Creation - NIH
Jun 1, 2022 · The institutional approach (or institutionalism) to understanding policy development is especially important in the fields of political science, economics, and ...
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Pharaohs - National Geographic Education
Mar 19, 2024 · Pharaohs were heads of state and religious leaders in ancient Egypt, acting as divine intermediaries, making laws, and overseeing land.
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Oct 13, 2016 · The government of ancient Egypt was a theocratic monarchy as the king ruled by a mandate from the gods, initially was seen as an intermediary ...
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The Power and Rule of Ancient Mesopotamia - Itihasargolpo
Aug 22, 2025 · Each city functioned as an independent political and social entity. Power was primarily held by a king, or lugal, who also acted as a religious ...
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Mesopotamian civilization | Intro to Humanities Class Notes - Fiveable
Frequent conflicts between city-states led to shifting alliances and power dynamics. Akkadian Empire. Founded by Sargon of Akkad around 2334 BCE, considered ...
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Democracy (Ancient Greece) - National Geographic Education
May 30, 2025 · The first known democracy in the world was in Athens. Athenian democracy developed around the fifth century B.C.E. The Greek idea of democracy ...
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The Greek polis (article) | Classical Greece - Khan Academy
Of these, Athens and Sparta were the two most powerful city-states. Athens was a democracy and Sparta had two kings and an oligarchic system, but both were ...
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Rome's Transition from Republic to Empire
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Rome became the most powerful state in the world by the first century BCE through a combination of military power, political flexibility, economic expansion, ...
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Feudalism | Definition, Examples, History, & Facts - Britannica
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Feudalism | Western Civilization - Lumen Learning
The king was the absolute “owner” of land in the feudal system, and all nobles, knights, and other tenants, termed vassals, merely “held” land from the king, ...
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The Feudal System - Students of History
... vassals had command over the serfs that worked the land. In exchange for this control, they promised to fight in defense of the lord and the king if needed.
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The Emergence of a Feudal Order in Western Europe – HIST-1500
Even in Carolingian times, armies in much of Western Europe had come from war bands made up of a king's loyal retainers, who themselves would possess bands of ...Missing: origins | Show results with:origins
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17.3 Gunpowder and Nomads in a Transitional Age - OpenStax
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The Peace of Westphalia and Sovereignty | Western Civilization
The treaties ended the Thirty Years' War and the Eighty Years' War. The Thirty Years' War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648.
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Aug 21, 2024 · How did the Peace of Westphalia (1648) impact world order? It redefined power, sovereignty, and who gets to rule.
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5.3 The Mercantilist Economy - World History Volume 2, from 1400
Dec 14, 2022 · In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, mercantilist theory was embraced by most European nations, especially France and England. Perhaps as ...
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Consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution
Aug 25, 2025 · The effects of the Bolshevik Revolution of 7 November 1917 (old calendar 25 October) included: The Bolshevik seizure of power by force; The ...
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Rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe | European History - Fiveable
Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) was the founder of Italian Fascism and the first fascist dictator to come to power in Europe · Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) was the ...
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Fascism - Holocaust Encyclopedia
May 28, 2019 · Germany embraced fascism more than any other country. The Nazi government that ruled under Adolf Hitler between 1933 and 1945 was a fascist ...
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20th Century Democide - University of Hawaii System
This democide murdered 6 times more people than died in combat in all the foreign and internal wars of the century.
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Cold Conflict | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans
Following the defeat of the Axis powers, an ideological and political rivalry between the United States and the USSR gave way to the start of the Cold War.Missing: dynamics | Show results with:dynamics
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Reasons for the Cold War: Ideological Differences - BBC
Capitalism vs communism. The political and economic systems of the capitalist USA and communist USSR were incompatible.
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20TH CENTURY DEMOCIDE (Genocide and Mass Murder)
Totalitarian communist governments slaughter their people by the tens of millions, while many democracies can barely bring themselves to execute even serial ...
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The Circulation of Elites - jstor
Pareto (1968) defined the circulation of elites as the turnover in power of socioeconomic classes. Pareto's approach is suggestive as a historical gloss, but, ...
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'Disfigurations' of Democracy? Pareto, Mosca and the Challenge of ...
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Pareto's theory of elite cycles: A reconsideration and application
A final section examines current research on the dynamics of elite circulation and looks at the new challenges posed to political elites in times of ...
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Closed shutters or revolving doors? Elite career track similarity and ...
Sep 29, 2023 · Second, other studies paint a more sobering picture of elite circulation in modern democracies. Theoretically, scholars emphasize how ...
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Elite Education and Legislative Behavior in the U.S. Congress
About a third of the U.S. Congress is comprised of legislators who attended elite colleges, universities, and law schools. We studied how legislative behaviors ...
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Rise and fall of elites: professionals as movers? - MIT Press Direct
Empirical research has documented that individuals with an upper-class background have privileged access to elite positions.
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Party Patronage as Political Elite Recruitment: A framework of Analysis
The study of party patronage – as the power to appoint – rests on the sharp (legal and functional) division between elected and appointed elites.
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How technocratic is the power elite? A new approach and evidence ...
The technocratic background of the power elite is a stable even in the face of individual elite circulation. ... American political science review, 111 (1), 54–67 ...
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Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the ...
Dec 30, 2016 · Intra-elite competition is the process that sorts aspirants into successful elites and aspirants whose ambition to enter the elite ranks is frustrated.<|separator|>
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The Rule of Law - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
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Resource Separation of Powers: An Overview
Separation of powers, therefore, refers to the division of government responsibilities into distinct branches to limit any one branch from exercising the core ...
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Intro.7.2 Separation of Powers Under the Constitution
separation of powers as the division of governmental authority into three branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—each with specified ...
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[PDF] Legislative Constraints on Executive Unilateralism in Separation
Can legislatures effectively check unilateral executive power? One promi- nent and counterintuitive finding in previous work is that executives pursue.
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Political Appointees to the Federal Bureaucracy
Feb 20, 2024 · Majorities in the Senate can refuse confirmation of presidential nominees. Congress can also constrain the number of political appointees ...
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Judicial Review as a Limit on Government Domination
Jun 13, 2016 · My empirical research on judicial power focuses narrowly on the behavioral responses of state and private actors to judicial rulings ...
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The Political Foundations of Independent Judicial Review
Empirical evidence is consistent with the prediction that stable political competition encourages judicial independence. ... Political Power. Review of ...<|separator|>
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Don Leonard Publishes “Distributional Foundations of Democratic ...
Sep 19, 2025 · ... political outsiders who seek to circumvent or dismantle institutional constraints on executive power. This article explores the process by ...
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[PDF] INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON GOVERNMENT SPENDING
INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRAINTS ON. GOVERNMENT SPENDING. DAVID M. PRIMO. A distributive politics model establishes that the presence of exogenously enforceable ...
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Trust‐based corruption networks: A comparative analysis of two ...
Jul 15, 2021 · This article explores the role of trust in corrupt networks and networks that facilitate corruption.
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[PDF] Economic Effects of Using Nepotism and Cronyism in the ...
Mar 30, 2016 · This research comes to examine the role of nepotism and cronyism in weakening the economic performance in the institutions in the public ...
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(PDF) A Study On The Effects Of Nepotism, Favoritism And Cronyism ...
Aug 6, 2025 · The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of favoritism, nepotism and cronyism on job satisfaction in the public sector organizations of Pakistan.
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[PDF] Informal networks and what they mean for anti-corruption practice
Jan 1, 2022 · 1. Focusing on networked corruption as opposed to individual corrupt behaviours. 2. Tackling corruption both from the demand and the supply side ...
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[PDF] corruption perceptions index
As corruption grows in scale and complexity, over two thirds of countries now score below the mid-point on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions.
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The ABCs of the CPI: How the Corruption Perceptions Index is…
Feb 11, 2025 · It measures how corrupt each country's public sector is perceived to be, according to experts and businesspeople.
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Corruption and informal practices in the Middle East and North Africa
Jun 9, 2025 · In various countries, informal governance and networks facilitate corrupt behaviour, while perceptions of widespread corruption further ...
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Local Leaders' Informal Networks and Policy Tourism - Yang
Sep 20, 2025 · Informal networks may bring potential political risks. Intensive anti-corruption efforts may make local leaders risk-averse, and they are less ...
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[PDF] Cronyism and Nepotism Are Bad for Everyone: The Research ...
In conclusion, decades of research in political science, economics, and anthropology have demonstrated that nepotism and cronyism are bad for organizational ...
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Back to Basics: Globalization Today
Updated rules for international trade, coupled with stronger domestic policies, could make globalization more inclusive and sustainable.
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Capital Mobility and State Autonomy: Toward a Structural Theory of ...
constrains state behavior by rewarding some actions and punishing others. Key terms are defined, and a heuristic model of the "capital mobility hypothesis" ...
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[PDF] Capital Mobility and State Autonomy: Toward a Structural Theory of ...
Capital mobility is the capacity of capital to cross borders, constraining state behavior and limiting macroeconomic policy options.
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Constraints on Democracy: Capital Mobility and Political Inequality
Apr 9, 2025 · This analysis supports the notion that capital mobility is a mechanism behind differential political representation. Importantly, this evidence ...
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Capital Mobility and the Output-Inflation Tradeoff
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[PDF] Multinational Corporations and their Influence Through Lobbying on ...
Dec 2, 2019 · To examine this empirically, we first introduce a novel dataset of lobbying in the US encompassing lobbying activities of all public firms from ...
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[PDF] Multinational Corporations and the Erosion of State Sovereignty One ...
One of the most important issues states face is the growing power of the multinational corporation (MNC) at the expense of state sovereignty.
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Revisiting Structural Power in the Global Economy
“As international actors who benefit from access to a global market, they are likely to be more favorable to policies that foster an open world economy.
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The WTO and International Monetary Fund
The WTO and the International Monetary Fund. Globalization has increased the need for closer cooperation between the multilateral institutions with key roles ...
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Globalization: A Framework for IMF Involvement -- An IMF Issues Brief
The IMF believes that globalization has great potential to contribute to the growth that is essential to achieve a sustained reduction of global poverty.
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The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World ...
Jul 24, 2024 · As part of its self-preservation, the IMF, too, embraced development. The same is true of the WTO, a much younger institution.
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[PDF] Why Does Globalization Fuel Populism? Economics, Culture, and ...
Abstract. There is compelling evidence that globalization shocks, often working through culture and identity, have played an important role in driving up.
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Global economy faces a conflux of change - Brookings Institution
The world faces a remarkable conflux of powerful forces of change. The global economy, and political economy, are experiencing profound shifts.
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The impact of economic, political and social globalization on ...
Surprisingly, political and social globalization dominate the influence of the economic dimension. Hence, more consideration needs to be given to the forms of ...
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The Political Effects of Social Media Platforms on Different Regime ...
Jul 1, 2021 · 191 Countries where major civil movements have occurred have shown exponential growth in social media use during and after those movements.
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Social media has been considered to facilitate more online political participation (OPP) due to being less bounded by time and space constraints.
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The artificial intelligence shock and socio-political polarization
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A cohort of countries is moving toward digital authoritarianism by embracing the Chinese model of extensive censorship and automated surveillance systems.
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Digital Authoritarianism: How Digital Technologies Can Empower ...
Feb 16, 2023 · Armed with this capacity, authoritarian regimes can more easily stem offline and online dissent and target surveillance at specific groups.
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May 1, 2025 · AI-powered surveillance facilitates authoritarianism across the globe. Here's how courts and lawmakers could stop it from happening here.
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Oct 18, 2022 · There is an increasing tendency in the West to frame, analyse, and discuss digital surveillance in terms of “authoritarianism vs. democracy”.
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AI and Geopolitics: How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations?
Nov 3, 2023 · Nations across the globe could see their power rise or fall depending on how they harness and manage the development of artificial intelligence (AI).
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Nation-State Threats | Cybersecurity and Infrastructure ... - CISA
As a nation, we are seeing continued cyber and physical threats targeting critical infrastructure Americans rely on every day. Nation-state actors and ...
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Cyber Effects in Warfare: Categorizing the Where, What, and Why
Aug 1, 2024 · This paper introduces a novel analytical framework to assess offensive cyber operations based on the circumstances of their use across the different phases of ...
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Why and how is the power of Big Tech increasing in the policy ...
This article investigates how Big Tech utilize their technological monopoly and political influence to reshape the policy landscape.
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Technology sovereignty as an emerging frame for innovation policy ...
We define technology sovereignty not as an end in itself, but as a means to achieving the central objectives of innovation policy.
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Political Scientist: Does Diversity Really Work? - NPR
Aug 15, 2007 · A study conducted by Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam suggests that diversity hurts civic life and that differences can actually translate into ...
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Race, Education Remain Stark Dividing Lines in Changing 2020 US ...
Jun 2, 2020 · Still, just 36% of registered voters have a four-year college degree or more education; a sizable majority (64%) have not completed college.
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[PDF] The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Identity Politics
Identity groups occupy an uneasy place in democracy. Critics empha- size how much group identities constrain rather than liberate individ-.
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The Rise of Multicultural Nationalism | Journal of Democracy
Multicultural nationalism involves developing a national identity where all citizens belong without losing other identities, and it is interactive and ...
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Party Divisions | US House of Representatives - History, Art & Archives
Before the first day of Congress, 14 Representatives-elect died. The results of the special elections caused party control of the House to change, and Democrats ...
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Here's the last time the GOP controlled Senate, House and presidency
Nov 13, 2024 · The last time the Republican Party (GOP) controlled the Senate, House and presidency was from January 20, 2017, to January 3, 2019.
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The Supreme Court is headed toward a radically new vision of ...
Oct 7, 2025 · President Donald Trump set the tone for his second term by issuing 26 executive orders, four proclamations and 12 memorandums on his first ...
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Balance of Power in the U.S. House and Senate
Jun 5, 2025 · The Republican Party retains control of the House of Representatives, continuing their majority from the previous term. Republicans currently ...
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... president. Law. Supreme Court term will tackle executive power, executive power and executive power. October 6, 20255:00 AM ET. Heard on Morning Edition.Missing: control | Show results with:control
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[PDF] The Administrative State in the Twenty-First Century
power to influence administrative policy change. Congress must also reinvigorate its ambition to legislate and revisit the often decades-old statutes that ...
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[PDF] Presidential Influence on the Bureaucracy - Eagle Scholar
May 3, 2024 · Due to information asymmetries, an elected official cannot comprehend every policy's nuance, meaning an agent – bureaucrats – is delegated power ...
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Trump 2.0 and the Administrative State: A Personnel-Driven ...
Sep 10, 2025 · In addition to being slightly leaner, Trump's bureaucracy may also be more politicized. Although workforce cuts have dominated headlines, the ...
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[PDF] Advancing the Empirical Research on Lobbying John M. de ...
Milyo et al (2000) shows that lobbying expenditures at the U.S. federal level are five times that of political action committee (PAC) campaign contributions.
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Campaign contributions and legislative behavior: Evidence from ...
In this paper, I find that more concentrated donations negatively correlate with three costly legislative endeavors of members of Congress.
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May 2, 2014 · And researchers have found that donating to political campaigns can grant access to legislators that would not otherwise be given. Furthermore, ...
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Dec 6, 2023 · Using this massive data set, we examine whether interest groups employ campaign contributions and lobbying as strategic complements, providing ...
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Measuring partisan media bias in US newscasts from 2001 to 2012
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Partisanship sways news consumers more than the truth, new study ...
Oct 10, 2024 · “We found that the strongest predictors of bias include extreme views of Trump, a one-sided media diet, and belief in the objectivity and lack ...
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Recent studies suggest that media exposure can have a sizable impact in shaping the public's political knowledge, attitudes, and behavior.
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Types of institutions, bodies and agencies | European Union
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The European Union: institutions, processes and powers - NCBI - NIH
Finally, the EU has a court, the CJEU. Formerly known as the European Court of Justice, it is the most powerful supranational court in history. It is made ...
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Qualified majority voting and the ordinary legislative procedure
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The Crisis of Europe: Democratic Deficit and Eroding Sovereignty ...
Jan 11, 2013 · In the midst of the rampant economic crisis, the vote in Europe has gone to the right; support to left parties has been at a historic low, while ...
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Op-Ed: The European Union has a Democratic Deficit Problem
In other words, the EU's democratic deficit refers to the lack of accessibility and representation of EU member-state citizens within the policy-making process ...
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More 'Europe', less Democracy? European integration does not ...
As a result, European integration might lead to an erosion of satisfaction with democracy in European countries. By means of a longitudinal analysis of the ...
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Recovery plan for Europe - European Commission
A total of €2.018 trillion in current prices are helping rebuild a post-COVID-19 Europe. It will be a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.
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The European Green Deal
Thanks to the European Green Deal, Europeans enjoy cleaner air and more energy efficient products and homes. They are also drawing on more renewable energy ...
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How Xi Will Consolidate Power at China's Twentieth Party Congress
Oct 5, 2022 · At the Chinese Communist Party meeting, leader Xi Jinping will likely receive a third term. Here's what that could mean for his control of China and the party.
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From Purge to Control: A Recent Pivot in Xi Jinping's Anti-Corruption ...
Feb 28, 2025 · From Purge to Control: A Recent Pivot in Xi Jinping's Anti-Corruption Crackdown ; 2020. 624,000. 485,000 (77.7%) ; 2021. 638,000.<|separator|>
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[PDF] CCP Decision-Making and Xi Jinping's Centralization of Authority
Nov 2, 2022 · 1 These major political events are occurring against the backdrop of Xi's intense consolidation and assertion of power over the last decade.
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China allows Xi to remain president indefinitely, tightening his grip ...
Mar 12, 2018 · China removed presidential term limits from its constitution on Sunday, giving President Xi Jinping the right to remain in office indefinitely.
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Cronyism and Failed Promotions: Xi's PLA Purge - Jamestown
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Information Control and Public Support for China's Social Credit ...
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China's Repression of Uyghurs in Xinjiang
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Unprecedented rise in global military expenditure as European and ...
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Study on twins suggests our political beliefs may be hard-wired
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Politically egalitarian societies were likely more common in pre-history than in recent millenia. Why did societies become more hierarchical?
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https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2743&context=ilj