Lecture 1 Flashcards
political science
the study of governments, public policies and political
processes, systems and political behavior
concept
a term, idea or category such as power or
democracy
conception
a broader understanding or interpretation of a
concept
Politics as an arena
behavior becomes political because
of where it takes place
Politics as a process
behavior becomes political because
of distinctive qualities
Different sources of power:
- Political/legal
- Economic
- Physical/coercive
- Information/ideas/expertise
- Social norms/values
- Personal/charisma
- Numbers/size
approaches to study politics
- institutional approach (institutions)
- behavioral approach (individuals)
- rational-choice approach (interests)
- structural approach (interrelations of groups)
- cultural approach (influence of societal cultural values)
- interpretive approach (ideas)
institutional approach
• known as one of the historical theoretical approaches and remains
an important tradition in comparative politics
• core to the discipline
• positions within organizations matter more than the people who
occupy them;
• Institutions provide the rules of the game and shape individual
behaviors
• institutions are pillars of the order in (liberal democratic) politics;
provide sources of continuity and predictability
behavioral approach
• In the 1960th, a shift from institutions towards individuals
• Study of individuals, as the unit of analysis, rather than institutions; e.g.
legislators instead of legislature, judges rather than courts
• Generalization about political attitudes and behavior
• Apply innovative social science techniques; e.g. public surveys
• Objective, ‘value-free’ research, scientific explanation rather than
descriptions
• Criticism: too much science and too little politics
rational-choice approach
• Rooted in ahistorical economics
• The elementary unit of social life is individual human action
• Rationality and self-interest as core assumptions
• Based on universal model of human behavior (which is questionable)
• Criticism: the collective action problem: individual rationality leads to a
poor collective result; moreover, people are not always rational actors!
structural approach
• The objective interrelationship between social groups
• Corrective to the limitation of individual-level analysis
• Embrace change more easily than institutionalists
• Emphasize objective relationships among social groups rather than the
interests and outlooks of particular actors
• Importance of social structure and social relations which shape,
constrain and empower actors
• Using comparative history methodology, contrast with non-historical
generalization favored by behavioralists/rationalists
cultural approach
• How cultural norms and practices support/undermine different political
preferences/forms?
• Understanding the influence of cultural norms
• The challenge of defining culture
• The values, beliefs, norms and habits that co-determine the action,
reaction and preferences of a society, even in the face of individual
differences
• Multiculturalism
• Criticism: danger of stereotyping and ethnocentrism
interpretive approach
• Distinctive focus on ideas and interpretations – assumptions, identities,
constructions, meanings and narratives
• Structures of human association are determined by shared ideas rather
than material forces; no objective or political reality
• Identities and interests of actors are constructed by shared ideas rather
than given by nature
• Ideas shape our interests, goals, allies and enemies
• A social approach rather than a psychological one
• Political affairs cannot be a behavioral science seeking laws but rather
must be an interpretative one seeking meaning
• Criticism: with emphasis on meaning, misses commonplace observation;
the interpretive approach is more aspiration than achievement!
