Political Systems Essays - Political Philosophy, Politics, Elections

Political Systems Since the creation of mankind the world has been continually changing. With each day, man develops, countries grow and political systems change. A political system is an important set of social institutions. Political systems have many functions. Political systems create resources for education, health, welfare, industry and foreign policy. Political systems have changed drastically over centuries and are still changing everyday. To understand why and how political systems change, there are many factors. Some major factors are evolution, revolution and economy. A major factor and influence on why a political systems change is due to the countries social economy. The approach in which a country deals with certain political processes are affected by internal divisions of income, wealth and occupation, also by economic dependence or poverty. There is always a positive association between economic development and equality or income. The Linearity theory states that economic development leads to urbanization which leads to communication which leads to high levels of education and in turn leads to Democracy. This theory does an excellent job in showing how economics lead to a change in political systems. Wealthier nations such as the United States, Japan and other European countries often have more equitable income distributions than poorer countries. According to Robert J. Mundt, a political researcher, "in advanced industrial nations the wealthiest ten percent of households receive about one quarter of the national income, while poorest receive forty percent and about twenty percent get only fifteen percent of the national income; in middle income countries like Brazil, the wealthiest ten percent gets forty-six percent of national income and the poorest forth percent get only eight percent." An example of a country that social economy influenced the change in their political system would be the Russian Federation. The social economy lead to the fall of Communism. The Russian federation was a communist country believing in state owned and centrally planned government. Years ago the communists were able to keep up with the other big money powers of the world. But as time went on and they tried to catch up, their economy was too hard to control. Their products were poor quality and their quantity was created on a need basis. There was no efficiency. The people of Russia would have to wait years for cars, apartments and waited hours in lines for simple things like food and other basic necessities. The soviets began to argue with the government. In 1991, Russia had gone through the worst of it's inflation and industrial problems. Eventually Russia became the Russian Federation and there was an end to Communism. Urbanization is another reason that political systems change and develop. People run out of recourses on their rural lands and are forced to flee to the bigger cities. People go to the bigger cities hoping to find a better life for their families and themselves. As more people go these cities, it creates more jobs. Industry grows and the social economy also grows. Political systems begin to create governments that work on foreign policy and trade which creates more money. Eventually the political systems shape their governments to look like those of the other bigger wealthier countries in the world. Another factor that changed many countries political systems is that of a revolutionary change. Two countries that were strongly influenced by the revolutionary change were Russian and Germany. After World War I, Russians believed the revolution lead to the collapse or imperialism and capitalism. Russia was doing well before the war. Industry was still grown and the people seemed to be happy. That did not last long though, the war changed everything. When the Russian military went to war against Germany, the tsarist government fell. As the tsarist government fell apart so did the Russian economy. The government found themselves stuck in a situation that they did not know what to do. In 1917 democratic moderates over the power of the tsar. This group hoped to make the country more modern and democratic. But in a strange turn of events, the leader of the moderate democratics, betrayed his western allies and made a peace agreement with Germany. Eventually a Russian revolution created a party with the help of Germany lead to the fall of imperialism and capitalism. Soon after Russia became a communist country. Revolutionary change is apparent when looking at China's development as a government. China and Russia's political change are similar in many ways. One of the biggest revolutionary movements in China was Maoism. Maoism was created by a person named Mao Zedong. Mao believed in strengthening and