Reflection on the readings. Political Regimes. Literature Essay

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Political Regimes
The great majority in a country is often ruled by a few individuals who inherited the positions, commonly referred as monarchs, seized power forcefully or were chosen by the greater public to represent their interests. Political regimes associated with the aforementioned leadership styles have since developed all over the world. Kailitzin the article describes political regimes as “a set of rules that identifies: who has access to power; who is allowed to select the government; and under what conditions and limitations authority is exercised” (Kailitz 40). Kailitz’s article examines the studies of political scientists and scholars in Geddes, Hadenius and Teorell.Political regimes have also to conform to the pattern of legitimation and which theoretically provides the regime with the source of power. Steffen’s article classified the political regimes into liberal democracy, electoral autocracy, communist democracy, one party autocracy, monarchy, military regime and personalist autocracy.
Firstly is the liberal democracy which is characterized by multiparty free and fair elections with the legislature constraining the powers of the executive.The regime is deemed legitimate when the ruler is chosen directly or indirectly through popular election. A legislature chosen by the people together with a strong opposition party should be present.The United States provides the perfect example of a liberal democratic state. Secondly, is the electoral autocratic regime that also advocates for multi-party elections. However, electoral autocracies don’t observe free and fair elections with the executive given excessive power and control over the legislature and the people. A good example is Venezuela under President Chavez. Thirdly is the communist ideocratic regime where rulers force their rights to rule from their ideologies and would mostly assert their control on the people by reshaping various aspects in the society. The regime is therefore legitimized with the claim of a socialist society that is governed with t...