institutionalism/behaviouralism Flashcards by Rebecca Huesch

what is a institution for traditional institutionalists?

treated as the formal rules that shaped behaviour

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what is institutionalism?

describe formal rules that shaped behaviour eg political parties or the law

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what did institutionalists end up focusing on inadvertently?

stability rather than change

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what does Rhodes call institutionalism?

the ‘historic heart of the discipline’

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how do institutionalists feel about theory

they have an instinctive disdain for it

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what does institutionalism tend to be? (4)

normative, structuralist, holistic and historicist

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what does normative mean?

how to create a ‘good’ government/ should be / ought to be

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what does structuralist mean?

structures determine political behaviour

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what does holistic mean?

describing and comparing whole systems of government

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what does historicist mean?

central influence of history

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when did the shift occur away from institutionalism?

the behavioural revolution during the 50/60s

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what is behaviouralism?

explain individual actors political behaviour objectively

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what do behaviourists try to do?

focus on individuals, deal with the world how it is, not how it should/could be

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what do behaviourists focus on? (4)

1) Observable behaviour (individual or societal level)
2) Empirical testing
 3) Replication
4) Objectivity

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what can behaviourism be linked to?

positivism

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why did behaviourism become popular? (quote from Dahl)

‘Many American scholars (very) unhappy that the institutionalists spectacularly failed to  see fascism coming’

how should evidence be used for behaviouralists?

systematically, assess ALL the evidence or at least a representative sample

what is also key to behaviourist research?

need to be able to falsify hypothesised theories

what did behaviourists think about institutions?

made up of individual actors

when did new institutionalism emerge?

1980s

what made it different from traditional institutionalism? (2)

widened the idea of an institutions to ‘collections of interrelated rules and routines that define appropriate actions in terms of relations between roles and situations’ (March and Olsen)
concerned with not just the impact of institutions on individuals, but also the interaction between them

why did new institutionalism emerge?

Attempt to reassert that organisations of political life do make a difference

what is normative institutionalism?

Institutions influence actor’s behaviour by shifting their values, norms, interests and beliefs

what is rational choice institutionalism?

Institutions influence actors behaviour by affecting the structure of a situation so that the individual select strategies for the pursuit of their preferences

what is historical institutionalism?

Institutional organisation works to privilege some interests while demobilising others, change occurs when power relations shift

how did new institutionalists view institutions? (4)

as formal and informal dynamic as well as stabilising embodying values and power contextually embedded

What is Karl Popper's idea? What does this mean?

'All swans are white’... but then we find a black swan - The statement is false - Or does that mean if a swan is not white then it is not a swan at all? - Can both of these be correct?

How can behaviourists be criticised?

‘normative/ interpretivist political science’ seen as pointless

how would behaviourists respond to being told ‘normative/ interpretivist political science’ is pointless?

these statements add a lot to our understanding of human nature

What was Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhang’s study about?

to what extent is inequality responsible for generating the sort of grievances that lead to conflict and civil war?

why had qualitative research failed to find a parallel between inequality and civil war?

focused too much on individual level data, which doesn’t take into account group inequalities and also country-level data which failed to measure the ethnonationalism among different groups within a country

what 4 variables did Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhang’s study find which they were 99% certain had an effect?

group politically excluded group politically downgraded relative group size number of previous conflicts

what 2 variables did Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhang’s study find which they were 95% certain had an effect?

ongoing conflict | GDP/capita

what 2 variables did Cederman, Gleditsch and Buhang’s study find which had no statistically significant effect?

population | level of democracy