Lecture 11 Flashcards
Political theory
▪ Political theory is the study of concepts and
principles used to evaluate, critique, and prescribe
political action, events, and institutions
▪ Unlike empirical approaches to political science, it
engages mainly normative claims
▪ Normative claims: ‘prescriptive or evaluative
statements… treated as sets of propositions that
must be a) internally consistent and b) defended
against opposing views
▪ Not subjective opinions! (Baubock p. 41)
Core themes in political theory
▪ Political theory neither tries to explain nor to
understand how the world is.
▪ Instead, it analyses political affairs (existing affairs
or proposed states-of-affairs) according to the
following themes (not an exhaustive list):
–Power - Legitimacy
–Authority - Justice
–Equality - Rights
–Ideology - Obligation
History of political thought
▪ History of Political Thought is the subdiscipline of Political Theory that looks at
(the influence of) ‘canonical thinkers’
▪ There are many different approaches:
– Exegetical textual analysis (e.g. Leo Strauss)
– Historical ideas ‘in context’ (Cambridge
school)
– Historical ideas ‘applied’ to contemporary
problems
fact/value distinction
▪ The traditional/positivist view is that facts
and values can be cleanly separated.
▪ Facts concern ‘what is’
▪ Values concern ‘what should be’ or ‘what
should have been’
Empirical vs normative statements
▪ Empirical statements are claims about
what factually is. For example:
– I had French toast for breakfast
– It is freezing outside
▪ Normative statements communicate
value judgements. For example:
– French toast is delicious (evaluative)
– We should not go and sit in the garden
(prescriptive)
Normative arguments
▪ Each argument with a normative conclusion (X)
must have at least one normative premise (Y), which
are often combined with (an) empirical premise(s)
(Z)
Example:
▪ Torture is always wrong (Y)
▪ Waterboarding is a form of torture (Z)
▪ The CIA waterboarded Al Qaeda suspects in 2002 (Z)
▪ What the CIA did was morally reprehensible (X)
Normative and moral claims
▪ All moral claims are normative claims
– Torture is always wrong
▪ Not all normative claims are moral claims
– We should sit in the garden
– French toast is delicious
John Raws theory of justice
▪ Rawls suggested principles of justice should:
– Be consistent with our specific judgements of
justice (in Rawlsian terms, they should be in
reflective equilibrium)
– Be impartial
▪ To try to come up with impartial principles,
Rawls suggested we imagine we are behind
a ‘veil of ignorance’ when we reason about
justice
Rawls’ 2 principles of justice
▪ Greatest Equal Liberties principle: a
system of basic liberties that maximizes
equal civil liberties
▪ Social and economic inequalities arranged
to guarantee:
– The greatest benefit to the least advantaged
(‘maximin’)
– Fair equality of opportunity
Political theory and political science
▪ Empirical and normative claims and
arguments can be analytically separate
▪ But: if the goal is to discover the best form
of government, we also need comparative
political science (Bauböck p. 41)
▪ In fact, political theory used to be
integrated with the study of politics (e.g.
Aristotle; ‘old’ institutionalism)
Frankfurt school on fact/value
▪ While the traditional school separates ‘fact’ and
‘value’ this is also contested
▪
‘Frankfurt School’ political theorists like Adorno,
Horkheimer and Habermas argue value
judgements are inescapable in empirical political
science
Remember: this view is shared by many
interpretivists who emphasize that empirical
knowledge is discursively, theoretically and
conceptually ‘laden’
Contextualist turn
▪ In theorizing justice as the ‘first virtue of social
institutions’ Rawls instigated an institutionalist turn
▪ This led to a contextualist turn in political theory,
often through exploring weaknesses of Rawls
▪ For example:
– Non-ideal theory
– Global (distributive) justice
–Closed societies and just migration
– Self-determination and minority rights
Bridging political theory and science gap
▪ Beyond the debate between positivists
and the Frankfurt school, political science
can include value judgements:
– In deciding how to study (ethical review)
– In deciding what to study (motivation)
Should the study of politics be methodsdriven or problem-solving?
Combining normative and empirical work
▪ The empirical study of normative attitudes/beliefs
▪ Studying institutionally embedded norms
▪ Qualitative case studies
▪ Quantitative comparative studies
