“Wilson's analytical theory assumed that the natural and inevitable tendency in any system of government is to have recourse to some sovereign body that will exercise "ultimate supremacy" and have the last say in making collective decisions. It is in this sense that we speak of a government as have a monopoly over the legitimate exercise of authority and use of force in society. Indeed, much of contemporary political science is based on this presumption.”

Vincent Ostrom (2008), The Intellectual Crisis in American Public Administration, p. 87; Cited in: " Vincent Ostrom on Woodrow Wilson and Political Monism http://discoursesonliberty.blogspot.nl/2012/04/vincent-ostrom-on-woodrow-wilson-and.html" at discoursesonliberty.blogspot.nl, 2012/04

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Wilson's analytical theory assumed that the natural and inevitable tendency in any system of government is to have reco…" by Vincent Ostrom?
Vincent Ostrom photo
Vincent Ostrom 3
American academic, educator and political scientist 1919–2012

Related quotes

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 81

Michel Foucault photo
Gustave de Molinari photo
Robert A. Heinlein photo

“Although this is less often commented on in the academic literature, democracy is as much about opposition to the arbitrary exercise of power as it is about collective self-government….”

Ian Shapiro (1956) American political theorist

"Democratic Justice" in The Democracy Sourcebook (2003) edited by Robert Dahl, Ian Shapiro, and José Antonio Cheibub.

Ronald Reagan photo

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to ensure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Interview published in Reason (1 July 1975)
1970s

William O. Douglas photo
Karl Popper photo

“The open society is one in which men have learned to be to some extent critical of taboos, and to base decisions on the authority of their own intelligence.”

Vol. 1, Endnotes to the Chapters : Notes to the Introduction.
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)

Michael Ignatieff photo
Enoch Powell photo

“…the power to control the supply of money, which is one of the fundamental aspects of sovereignty, has passed from government into other hands; and therefore new institutions must be set up which will in effect exercise some of the major functions of government. They would set the level of public expenditure, and settle fiscal policy, the exercise of taxing and borrowing powers of the state, since these are indisputedly the mechanism by which the money supply is determined. But they would do more than this. They would be supreme over the economic ends and the social structure of society: for by fixing prices and incomes they would have to replace the entire automatic system of the market and supply and demand—be that good or evil—and put in its place a series of value judgments, economic or social, which they themselves would have to make…There is a specific term for this sort of polity. It is, of course, totalitarian, because it must deliberately and consciously determine the totality of the actions and activities of the members of the community; but it is a particular kind of totalitarian regime, one, namely, in which authority is exercised and the decisions are taken by a hierarchy of unions or corporations—to which, indeed, on this theory the effective power has already passed. For this particular kind of totalitarianism the Twentieth Century has a name. That name is "fascist."”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

Speech in Leamington (18 September 1972), quoted in The Times (19 September 1972), p. 12
1970s

Related topics