ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the social and political bases of such regimes and the fundamental structure of relations within which they operate and argues that the most basic engine of behavior underlying societies and the regimes associated with them is along a socio-political dimension of freedom versus power. Interest or lobbying groups in democracies use this power all the time— a legislator's promise or vote in exchange for support or campaign funds at reelection time. There is the intellectual power of persuasion, where a person comes to accept one's idea or argument because one persuades them of it. The democratic end is the classical liberal democratic type of regime that governs least, with maximum civil liberties and political rights, and within a society dominated by exchange power. The most authoritarian regimes and especially those with hereditary absolute monarchs usually have no political parties, no elections, and no legislatures with meaningful power.
