Final Flashcards
Realism
What we must do
Plato’s Republic
Ideal v real
Thrasymachus
Sophist (realist)
Socrates
Idealist
Conceptual framework
Backgrounds shape our understanding of politics
Idealist period
Wake of WW1; effort to attain a perfect world
Aristotle
Realist; learn by observation
Machiavelli
Father of realism
Hobbes
State of nature is brutal and short; social contract
Locke
Natural rights; “life, liberty, and property”
Rousseau
“The general will”; voice of the majority must speak for the common good
Political theory
Complex and robust for elites
Political ideology
Simple for masses
Classic liberalism
People should generally be free of gov constraints
Classic conservatism
Reaction to french monarch; wary of change
Communism
Classless society
Democratic socialism
Complete equality
Reform liberalism
Gov regulates economy; removes major obstacles to individual goals
Racism
Supremacy and purity of one group
Politics
Individual or combined actions of individuals, governments, groups aimed at getting what they want accomplished with public consequences
Babbie two realities
Experiential from direct experiences v agreement from interaction
Collective action
Coordinated group activity to achieve a common goal that individuals alone could not attain
Job’s 4 critical securities:
State–> borders and gov structures
Regime–> leaders protect hold
National–> protect interests of ethnic groups
Individual–> protect individuals
Authority
Social structure that leads others to accept a persons control
Hierarchy
Broad, formalized governmental structure
Government
Institutionalize power for collective actions
Conflit
Most central part to group dynamics
Coser and conflict
Intergroup conflict increases willingness of group members
Green lantern theory
President can do anything with enough effort
Ideal v real on leadership judgement
Ideal: how effectively the provide
Real: leaders maximize self interest
Panopticon
Control with secret observation and harsh punishment
Revolutions
Mass uprising to replace the current gov
Atomization
Separate people to prevent from joining together
Peer policing
People police each other
Preference falsification
Hiding the way you feel
Limits on forceful control
Level of force needed relates to society’s level of unhappiness
Legitimacy
Voluntary acceptance of government; bad for short term (opposed to force), good for long term
Intragroup conflict
Safety valve, expose cross cutting cleavages
Tragedy of the commons
Exploitation of shared resources
Enlightened self interest
Everyone’s best interest is to preserve the commons; overlooks that calculations are not based on own behavior
Stag hunt
Interdependence of actions/choices affects collective efforts to attain a goal
Economic goal of government
Control means of production (mechanism to turn labor into wealth)
Humanist
Idealist interested in concerns for broader human condition and quality of people’s lives
Capitalism (driving force, value, fatal flaw)
Driving force: competition
Value: efficiency
Fatal flaw: massive overexploitation
Socialism
Society has means of production; equal distribution
Structure
generic
Institution
Specific
Transaction cost
Time, effort, resources to make collective decisions
Conformity cost
Difference between what one part wants and what the collective body requires
Political culture
Political aspect of human nature of a local populace
Aristotle’s 6 types of governments
Monarchy: rule by one for all Dictatorship: rule by one for one Aristocracy: rule by few for all Oligarchy: rule by few for few Polity: rule by all for all Democracy: rule by many for many
Republic
No single authoritarian leader
Presidential system
Separate executive and legislature; more stable
Parliamentary system
Fusion of executive and legislature; more efficient
Social forces that led to separation between legislature and executive
Tradition (elder councils), religion (power of priesthood); banks (King had to tax)
Functions of legislatures
Lawmaking, representing, checking, legitimacy, educating
Politico
Delegate and trustee
Problems with presidential system
Imperial presidency, gridlock, divided government
Problems with parliamentary system
Policy stability, vote of no confidence
Problems with PR
Coalition, relevant party, immobilism, minority gov
Problems with SMD
Gerrymandering, pork barrel
Functions of authoritarian regime legislature
Advise, legitimate, educate
Bureaucracy
Position within administrative political culture; oversee day to day management
Bureaucracy function
Service, regulation, implementation, policy making
Max weber and bureaucracy
Must function like a machine with clear role assignment, rules, clear hierarchy, professionalism/merit
Bureaucracy flaws
Too consistent, inflexible, unresponsive, authority leakage (top-down gets distorted)
Idealism
What would be best
Iron triangle
Bureaucracy, interest groups and elected officials
Agency theory
Potential for bureaucratic responsiveness to public
Principal agent model
Bureaucracy and legislature is like a business contract
Cockroach theory
Bureaucracy avoids negative media attention to get funding
3 roles of courts
Dispute resolution, policy making, monitoring
Statutory interpretation
By defining how laws are interpreted courts do policy making
Injunctive power
Courts power to stop actions of government
Trial courts
Original jurisdiction; first hear and establish facts of the case
Appellate courts
Appellate jurisdiction; review records, can only disagree with law and process not facts
Civil law system
Codified, protect innocent; napoleonic
Inquisitorial
Prolonged pretrial investigation
Common law system
Judges base on customs and precedent; adversarial
Jurisprudence
Philosophy of law
Natural law
Higher law, originates with God/nature; discoverable through use of reason
Positivist jurisprudence
Laws can be studied as a body of principles that originate with the state but take own logic and rationality
Realist jurisprudence
Law is set of rules to meet needs of society
Private law
Private individuals and organizations
Public law
Government and individuals/organizations
Criminal law
Crime and punishment based on gov laws
Civil law
Relations between parties
Judicial review
Began with Marbury v Madison; when CJ Marshall created it because of Adams midnight appointments
Blacks median voter theorem
Win set of medians ideal point is an empty set
3 assumptions of blacks median voter theorem
Odd # group, full participation, sincere voting
Multidimensionality
No stable winset
Multidimensionality dolufion
Agenda setting and voting rules
Indifference circle/single peaked preferences
Want $8, don’t care between $7.05 & $8.05
Plotts theorem
2 dimensions can find radial symmetry
McKelveys chaos theorem
Plotts theorem is so sensitive that you still get cycles
Rational choice/positive politics theorem
Rely on assumptions of self interested rational actions
Normative
What ought to be
Positive
How it is
Rationality assumptions
People have complete, transitive preferences and we can assign utility/worth to outcomes
Expected utility
Probability of an event occurring x its utility
Cohesion trade off
Between cohesive preferences and fairness
Cohesive preference
How fair is a decision?
Moraski & Shipen data
Past nominations, ideological location of nominees 1949-1994
Moraski & Shipen dependent variable
Segal cover score of ideological scaling
Moraski & Shipen independent variable
ACLU/ADA score and Supreme Court voting scores
Moraski & Shipen hypothesis
Unconstrained–>P; Constrained–>J; semi-constrained–>Is
Moraski & Shipen problems
Small sample size, presidential term, assumes political vacuum, no infinite number of court nominees
Moraski & Shipen regimes
Unconstrained: S–P–J
Semi constrained: P–S–J
Fully constrained: P–J–S
Electoral system
Large scale to elect legislatures
Fundamental basis for 2 types of electoral systems
Governance: how well members act independently/decisive; representation: stronger ideological representation
SMD/FPP
each voter gets 1 vote for any candidate, most votes wins
Single non transferable vote
Voter gets one vote, multiple candidates win
Limited vote
Voter gets several votes, must distribute, multiple candidates elected
Cumulative vote
Voter gets several votes, don’t have to distribute, multiple candidates elected
Single transferable vote
Mark preference ranking, votes redistributed if exceed quota
Differences in PR systems
Threshold? Fractional seats?
Duverger’s Law
Plurality –> 2 party
Voting methods
Small scale
Single plurality vote
1 vote for 1 option, most votes wins
Plurality runoff
1 vote for 1 option, top 2 go into a runoff
Sequential runoff
1 vote for 1 option, lowest gets eliminated, runoff, repeat
Borda count
Rank options (except lowest), points tallied
Condorcet procedure
Pair off alternatives and determine if overall winner
Approval voting
Approve some and tally
Debt
Consistent, long term, cumulative
Budget deficit
Year to year
What affects the debt
Overwhelming entitlement spending
Negative agenda power
Blocking something
Dummy variable
One-zero, ie democrat or not
Errors
Systematic > random
Krehbiel theory
Individual preferences matter more than party
Why does party have less influence?
No control over nominating, members raise $ independently, us has broad parties, us parties are unpopular
A to Z spending bill
Cuts debt, created by Dem without party’s support, has Dem wafflers
Waffler
Cosponsor who won’t sign/vote
Krehbiel methods
Ideology of members via voting scores from 1 conservative interest group and 1 liberal interest group
Binder et. al
Party matters more than individual preferences
Party has influence because:
Punish with agenda setting, committee assignment, provides member cues, voters vote party line, party does give some $
Issues with Krehbiel
Interest group scores are heavily biased
Binder et al methods
Concord coalition scores
