Lecture 1 Flashcards
what is Political Science? (2 def)
- the study of theory and practice of government and politics, focusing on the structure and dynamics of institutions, behaviors, and processes
- systemic study of politics including institutions, behavior,and processes
political science in simpler terms?
The study of theory on how something should be and how something is
the process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing shared or collective decisions
politics
politics in simple terms
the distribution of who gets what, when, a nd why
- capacity to bring about intended effects
- the ability of actor A to get actor B to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do
Power
more appealing to some formality
soft power
Actors
the thing we are interested in studying
government
how society organized itself and how it allocates authority in order to accomplish collective goals and provide benefits to society as a whole
government in simple terms
how society decided to organize itself and how it makes decisions
the function of a government
able to make decisions and enforce laws
institutions & example
the set of rules and norms that govern behavior
ex: Lamar university, tennis
norms
socialized accepted behavior
Political science uses
the scientific method
Steps of the scientific method 95)
- observation
- ask a question
- form a hypothesis aka causation (testable explation)
- Test
- Ilterate (repeat the experiment)
Iterate meaning
to repeat
What 4 things does good science have?
- falsifiable
- parsimonious
- replicable
- level of accuracy is usually high t
Good Science
Falsifiable
you can prove whatever you are conducting to be false
if you cannot prove something to be false then it is a
conspiracy theory
Good Science
Parsimonious
simple
keep your theory and hypothesis simple
Good Science
Replicable
Transparent
other people can see what you did and can also do it themselves and have the same outcome
What does N represent?
Number of Cases
cases
an example of a phenomenon of interest
population of cases
EVERY EXAMPLE of the phenomenon that exists
Small Number of cases (N) includes
more in-depth details of the process
