Many claim that the maintenance of stability and order is the most basic function of government. This idea can be seen in the famous quote from Thomas Hobbes (Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher in the 17th century who was known for his works of political philosophy) that states that without government, life would be ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short’.
From this perspective, the main purpose of government is to use its authority to ensure stability. An important part of this is that government must maintain the stability of the political system. In the simplest assessment, governments are successful if they can stop the state from collapsing. This involves controlling crime, corruption and violent conflict.
There are two views about how a government should do this: the liberal view and the conservative view.
The Liberal View
The liberal view claims that stable government must be based on consensus and consent. In this view, a governments responsiveness to popular demands and pressures is what creates stability. This has often been identified as a particular strength of liberal democracies. Liberal democracy often lead to a balance between conflicting interests because governments need to be responsive in order to stay in power. Government policies cannot go so far to threaten vital interests if they can be replaced in free and fair elections. However, in some situations responsiveness may create instability. For example, if people expect governments to be responsive to all needs and interests
this can lead to conflict. The central dilemma of stable government is that responsiveness must be balanced against effectiveness. Government must be sensitive to popular pressure, but it must also be able to overrule demands when those demands threaten to create violent conflict.
The Conservative View
Conservative thinkers have traditionally linked stability and order not to responsiveness but to authority. However, conservatives have also stressed that political authority is based on shared values and a common culture. In this view, stability and order are largely the product of social and cultural cohesion. It is the capacity of society to respect authority and support institutions that makes authority effective, not the use of force alone. In this way, liberal democracies might not be the most effective at maintaining this kind of stability. The political competition that is necessary for liberal democracy to function means that all views must be tolerated, even if they go against the dominant culture. Democratic citizens are expected to be critical of authority, which goes against the conservative view to some extent.
However, the weakness of this view of stability is that there are less checks and balances on government. Since it relies on authority used from above, it may not put effective limits on government power. If governments ignore legitimacy, social justice and respect for human rights, then this kind of authority can lead to oppression.