Week 2 — Readings & Resources · Power, Authority, Legitimacy & the State

Course: Introduction to Political Science (POLS 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Halloran
Objectives covered: Objective 2 (power, authority, legitimacy, the state, sovereignty, the social contract).

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the same way you'd open a YouTube link. Nothing needs to be downloaded, and there is nothing to buy.

This week's load is deliberately light: 2 short readings + 1 video + the two primary texts you'll use in the workshop, grouped by the ideas from the lecture, plus a couple of optional references. Read or watch one item per group and you're ready for the quiz; do all of them and you'll be very comfortable. Total time is roughly 45–55 minutes if you do everything, far less if you pick one per group.

Order that matches the lecture: ① power, authority, legitimacy & Weber's types → ② the state & sovereignty → ③ the week's primary texts (for the workshop): Hobbes and Locke.

A habit to keep from Week 1: before you trust any claim about what a thinker said — in these resources, in the tutorial, or anywhere — ask: is this the thinker's exact words, or someone's paraphrase of them?

① Power, Authority, Legitimacy & Weber's Three Types

Maps to Lecture Segments 1–4. The vocabulary that runs the whole week — and Weber's classic typology of what makes authority legitimate.

Reading — "Contemporary Government Regimes: Power, Legitimacy, and Authority" (OpenStax, Introduction to Political Science, §13.1)
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/13-1-contemporary-government-regimes-power-legitimacy-and-authority (verified live)
Why it's assigned: a free, readable statement of exactly this week's ground — how the discipline distinguishes power (the ability to get others to do things they otherwise wouldn't) from authority (power seen as rightful) and legitimacy. Read the section's opening definitions; skim the regime-type material at the end if curious (we get there in Week 5).
⏱ ~10 min

Video — "Types of Authority: Crash Course Sociology / Government" (CrashCourse, YouTube)
🔗 Search "CrashCourse Weber types of authority" on the CrashCourse Government & Politics or Sociology playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtOfse2ncvffeelTrqvhrz8H
Why it earns the click: a brisk, visual walkthrough of Weber's traditional/charismatic/legal-rational typology — the same three types from lecture, with different examples to widen your sense of each.
⏱ ~8 min

② The State & Sovereignty

Maps to Lecture Segment 5. The four conventional criteria of a state, internal vs. external sovereignty, and the state/nation/government distinction.

Reading — "Sovereignty and Anarchy" (OpenStax, Introduction to Political Science, §14.3)
🔗 https://openstax.org/books/introduction-political-science/pages/14-3-sovereignty-and-anarchy (verified live)
Why it's assigned: walks the same ground as lecture — the state's defining criteria (territory, population, government, sovereignty), the state/nation/country distinction, and what sovereignty means in practice — in the discipline's own words.
⏱ ~10 min

Reference — Peace of Westphalia (1648), for context (Britannica or a comparable encyclopedia entry)
🔗 https://www.britannica.com/event/Peace-of-Westphalia
Why it's assigned: the conventional historical marker for the modern sovereign-state system, discussed in lecture WITH the caveat that "1648 as origin" is a simplification historians themselves flag — this page gives the standard background without overclaiming a single origin moment.
⏱ ~6 min

③ The Week's Primary Texts (for the Workshop)

You'll analyze these in Political Analysis Workshop 2. Read both once before the workshop so you arrive ready to source them and set their arguments side by side.

Primary text — Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), Chapter XIII
🔗 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3207 (Project Gutenberg — full text; link only, no license claim)
Why it's assigned: Hobbes's own description of life without government — the "state of nature" — and the argument for why people would rationally consent to a powerful sovereign to escape it. Read Chapter XIII specifically; it's short.
⏱ ~12 min

Primary text — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1689), §95 (and §6 for context)
🔗 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7370 (Project Gutenberg — full text; link only, no license claim)
Why it's assigned: Locke's rival account — natural rights that exist prior to government, and government as a limited trust formed by consent. §95 states his consent principle directly; §6 gives his (milder) natural-law starting point. This week's workshop corroborates Hobbes's argument against Locke's — same problem, different answer.
⏱ ~10 min

Optional one-stop references (free online)

• OpenStax, Introduction to Political Science — the free survey text this course's link set returns to; a solid reference for any week.
  🔗 https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-political-science
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — entries on Hobbes, Locke, and the Social Contract. Rigorous, citable overviews if you want to go deeper on any one thinker.
  🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hobbes-moral/ · 🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/ · 🔗 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism-contemporary/
• Khan Academy — US Government and Civics. Short explainers you'll find linked again in Weeks 10–12.
  🔗 https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics

Pick-one quick path (≈25 min total)

In a hurry? Do exactly these and you'll be ready for the quiz:
1. Read the OpenStax section on power, authority, and legitimacy (group ①) — the vocabulary and Weber's types.
2. Read Hobbes's Leviathan Ch. XIII once, slowly (group ③) — for the workshop. If time allows, skim Locke's §95 too.

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell Prof. Halloran and use the OpenStax contents page, the Project Gutenberg search, or the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's own search above in the meantime.