New Politic Flashcards
1
Q
Why do some political scientists disagree with the method of studying politics through power?
A
They cannot afford to define their analytical sphere so broadly as to include all real and potential power relations.
The definition of power is so all-encompassing as to exclude almost nothing. Discipline would be unfocused
2
Q
How do we reconcile the vagueness of power with politics?
A
Robert Dahl suggested that power just like politics, can often be described in more and less exclusive ways. And they do define power in such a way as to render it coextensive with the political while retaining an essential arena definition of the latter.
3
Q
The First Face of Power
A
Decision-making power - (DAEZ)
Dominations one over the others
Attributes of an individual, being powerful
Effects need to be produced to affect the outcome
Zero-sum game, someone benefits while someone loses
4
Q
Dahl’s Definitions of the First Face of Power
A
‘A has power over B to the extent that A can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do’
5
Q
Limitations of this model (1)
A
The actor is assumed to have perfect information, and hence determine the best interest for themselves. If not then the transgressions aspect would then be voided, like ‘B would not otherwise do’ Classical Pluralist
Some decisions are more important than others, based on merely on frequency and quantitative measures simply ignore the qualitative importances.
6
Q
Empiricism of the first face of power
A
The Freedom to Vote Act, intended to expand voting rights, change campaign finance laws to reduce the influence of money in politics, and ban partisan gerrymandering. However, because of the large influence of lobbyists and the Republican Party, some Democrats voted against it, despite their interests.
It is often concrete and easily observable.
7
Q
The Second Face of Power
A
Agenda-setting power
The determinations of what is or what is not subjected to political deliberations. Creating barriers in determining what political conflict could be discussed and what cannot.
In addition, the need to weigh issues in the decision-making process in terms of their ‘importance’ in assessing the real distribution of power
Keyword: Mobalisations of Bias (Functions of organisations, bias in favour some kind of conflict)
8
Q
Peter Bachrach quote on second face of power
A
‘‘A decision that results in the suppression or thwarting of a latent or manifest challenge to the values or interests of the decision-maker’
9
Q
The potential downfall of this approach (2)
A
The analysis of power was set to become an altogether more complex, exacting and, arguably, subjective task. This led several pluralist critiques to conclude that non-decision-making was simply unresearchable.
In addition, it still maintain the assumption that actors’ preferences are a direct representation of their material interests.
10
Q
Empirical Evidences
A
Climate scientists reported that the administration edited their findings or blocked them from publication. (G.W.Bush)
Topics like cap-and-trade or emissions limits were largely kept off the legislative agenda.
Power was exercised through exclusion: keeping environmental reforms from becoming political issues.
11
Q
The Third Face of Power
A
Preference-Shaping Power
The actions and inactions similarly implicated in the shaping of perceived interests and political preferences. This draws from Marxist and Critical Theory analysis, in understanding how power is dispersed and productive in its nature. Cultural norms, ideology, and socialization to create consent and acceptance of the status quo. There is no alternative to Capitalism
12
Q
The potential problem of this approach (3)
A
As it requires the separation of real and perceived desires, this might lead to an elitist understanding, where it implies a privileged vantage point for the enlightened academic in determining the real interest. Link to Marx False’s consciousness. (Normative justifications)
13
Q
Empirical Example of Third Face of Power
A
Advertising promotes the idea that personal happiness is found in consumption.
Many people work long hours to buy more, despite high stress and debt, accepting this as “normal” or “success.”
Power is invisible: it operates through ideology, normalizing a way of life and limiting alternatives.
14
Q
Potential defence against the third face of power
A
Foucault rejects the idea of a pure “real interest” behind ideology.
But he still affirms the third face of power through concepts like discipline and subjectivation.
Power works by producing subjects who identify with certain roles and desires—not by repressing an authentic self underneath.
False Consciousness are not based on the “real interest”, but the immanent suppressions of desires and contradictions within the structures itself.
15
Q
Foucault
A
Power has two aspects there is the prohibition functions such as the law against incest, but also productive aspects exist in constituting an individual identity, similar to Althusser’s interpolation, subjects are hailed into existences.
Power is decentralized, operating through discourses, institutions, and everyday practices.
16
Q
Example of Foucault
A
Panopticon is a subtle mechanism of discipline, where individuals are constituted and censor themselves actively, even if there is no surveillance or explicit censorship, maintaining the power relationship. (internalisations of power)
17
Q
The potential problem with Foucault
A
How do we measure power and understand it?
Because the criteria of measurement itself is already set by by the institutional framework of a given social order.
18
Q
The circularity of all abstract approaches
A
If power operates by shaping consciousness, how do you prove it’s happening without assuming it in advance?
This leads to circular reasoning: If people don’t resist, that proves they’re oppressed—but also proves they’ve internalized power, which proves the theory.
19
Q
Authority
A
It is a de jure concept, concerning rights or legitimacy. A regime or state must necessarily “transmute” its coercive power into authority, by invoking moral and legal criteria. As Coerisive power doesn’t last long.
20
Q
Modern Elite Theory on Power
A
Modern elite theory emphasizes that power in society is concentrated in the hands of a small group of individuals or entities who occupy strategic positions within economic, political, and military institutions. (Derive from structural positions, not simply because that person are simply more superior)
21
Q
Neo-Pluralism on Power
A
Power is distributed among multiple interest groups, but this distribution is uneven, and some groups (e.g., corporations) have structural advantages.
Compromise and Competition: Power is still disperse
22
Q
De Jure vs De Facto
A
A distinction is therefore drawn between de jure authority— in which a right to behave in particular ways may be appealed to— and de facto authority— in which there is practical success of dictating situations.
23
Q
Conceptual View of the State and Power
A
The state is based on a social contract—an agreement among individuals to form a political community that ensures order, rights, and mutual benefit. Individuals in a “state of nature” (pre-political condition) come together and agree to form a state to protect their life, liberty, and property.
24
Q
Nightwatchman View of the State and Power
A
The state should be minimal, existing only to protect individuals from violence, theft, and fraud, and to enforce contracts. (State interventions impede individuals in the pursuit of their interests)
25
Organic View of the State and Power
The state has a kind of higher moral or spiritual existence. It’s not merely a tool for individuals, but a realization of collective ethical life.
Individuals find their freedom and identity through participation in the state.
The good of the individual is subordinated or harmonized with the good of the whole.
26
Opressor View of the State and Power
The state is a tool of domination, created and maintained by one class or group to oppress others. For Marx, the state arises with the division of society into classes and serves the interests of the ruling class (bourgeoisie in capitalism).
The state is not neutral; it enforces laws that maintain private property, wage labor, and class hierarchy.
27
Floyde Hunter Research
Floyd Hunter (1953): Study of Local Power
o Introduced the reputational method, which identifies elites based on their perceived influence within a community, as judged by knowledgeable insiders.
o This approach revealed a "power elite" composed largely of business leaders who operated behind the scenes.
o Local power structures were dominated by business elites who controlled resources, policy decisions, and the broader social agenda.
o Formal democratic institutions were often influenced by this informal power base.
28
Gramsci on Power?
Power is not maintained through forces, but by securing consent through the public, or ruling class as common sense or the norm. A passive revolution is when elites adapt elements of reform or popular demands to maintain their control—absorbing opposition while preserving the basic structure of power. Ideological State Apparatus helps build hegemony
29
Weber on Authority?!
1. Traditional Basis: it’s always been like this… embedded in rules
2. Charismatic Basis: direct and personal appeal, attractive ideas
3. Legal-rational Basis: adherence to rationally created (constitutional) rules
30
Key Features of the Agentic Approach
The capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices, in turn, shapes and interacts to create the social field. (So understanding individuals and their interests is key in studying politics)
31
Key Features of the Structural Approach
The overall structure of society largely determines social existence. The operation of this structure can also explain most individuals' perceived agency.
Key Word: Holism (the whole is greater than the sum of its parts)
32
Rational Choice Theory
1. Individuals will choose the action that best satisfies their desires, given their beliefs
2. Beliefs would be based on the best available evidence to the individual
3. The individual will invest the appropriate amount of resources to carry out the action
Key Word: Prisoner Dilemma
33
Rational Choice Institutional Theory
Institutions create rules and incentives designed to maximize utility for actors within them. It examines how actors, motivated by self-interest, strategically interact with institutions to achieve their goals. (Hall and Taylor)
34
The Problem of Rational Choice Institutional Theory
It fails to synthesise both approaches and instead reduces individuals to "calculating automatons", reacting to institutional constraints rather than acting creatively. Falling back to institutional determinism. (Hay)
35
The Problem with Rational Choice Theory
* Rational Choice theorists tend to assume that interests exist but don't try to explain how they emerged. Link to the third face of power, New Institutions states it depends on a “logic of appropriateness”, whether a person will act on the behaviour or will. (Olsen)
* RCT assumes that individuals are utility-maximizers with stable, transitive preferences, but this is empirically and psychologically implausible. (In Economics the turn from neoclassical to studying behaviour, like addictions, lack of computations, and herding are all hard to measure and define personal utility) Herbert Simon proposed bounded rationality, cognitive limitations and informational constraint.
36
Louis Althusser on Structural Determinism
Rejections of Young Marx's idealistic influences (The self-referential priority of subject and ideology), instead emphasise that material conditions constitute the subject in itself, interpellation. Inherent contradictions within the capitalist system, lead to its immanent revolutions
37
Neo-Institutionalism
Political institutions are sets of "rules" that direct or limit the actions of individual actors. Furthermore, these regulations are both informal and formal, with unwritten customs or understandings occasionally influencing policy-making procedures more so than official agreements.
38
Historical Institutionalism
Selective bias within institutions becomes self-reproducing – decisions made earlier can lock institutions into patterns and make them hard to change. (However, rejects full teleology)
Due to path dependence, institutions may have considerable stability and "stickiness". (QWERTY) Institutions might falter. (Skopol, Thelen)
Compared to "Old Institutionalism" Max Webber's Iron Cage of Bureaucracy, more reflective and comparative
39
How does Historical Institutionalism change
Displacement: when relevant actors leave existing institutions and go to new or alternative institutions
Conversion: old rules are reinterpreted and redirected to apply to new goals, functions and purposes
Exhaustion: an institution overextends itself to the point that it cannot fulfil its purposes and ultimately breaks down
"Critical Junctures": New path form from Shock like revolutions and uprisings.
40
Historical Institutionalism Functioning?
*Shaping strategic context. (Cognitive filters)
*Interpretation by the Actor without full knowledge
*Intended and unintended consequences.
*These consequences modify the institution
*Actors learn from these changes and adjust future strategies.
*Over time, this leads to institutional evolution or transformation.
Keyword: Recursive Loop
41
The Potential Problem of Historical Institutionalism
Munck (i) The problem of infinite regress (the notion that the cause of events can constantly be pushed back further in time, how does the first cause emerges), and (ii) Changes (usually) seen as coming from exogenous crises, rather than internal issues and problems.
42
Historical Institutionalism vs Structurations Theory
Sees structure and agency as interacting but distinguishable. vs Sees structure and agency as inseparable and co-constitutive.
Centers on path-dependency, strategic learning, and institutional change. vs Centers on routine action, reproduction of structure, and everyday reflexivity.
43
Structuration on the necessity of structures
Agent is provided with frames which allow agents to feel "ontological security, the trust that everyday actions have some degree of predictability.” Use for Dominations, Significations, or legitmisations. (Defined as rules and resources organized as properties of social systems.)
44
The Mechanism of Structurations
Agents perform social actions through embedded memory, called memory traces. Memory traces are thus the vehicle through which social actions are carried out. Structures exist both internally within agents as memory traces that are the product of phenomenological and hermeneutic inheritance and externally as the manifestation of social actions.
45
Structurations on changes and stability
*The routinized character of most social activity is something that has to be 'worked at' continually by those who sustain it in their day-to-day conduct. The structure is not some metaphysical substance, but rather it is wholly empirical, where Structure only exists because people keep doing things in structured ways.
*"Reflexive monitoring" refers to agents' ability to monitor their actions and those actions' settings and contexts.
46
Example by Gidden
But in producing a syntactically correct utterance I simultaneously contribute to the reproduction of the language as a whole
47
Criticism of Structurations
Critics argue that Giddens conflates structure and agency by embedding structure entirely within the minds and actions of agents. Margaret Archer, for example, contends that this approach undermines the ability to study structures as distinct entities influencing behaviour over time.
This conflation leads to ambiguities about how structures exist independently of agents or how they exert influence beyond immediate interactions
48
Actor-Network Theory and Post-structuralism
These networks are potentially transient, existing in a constant making and re-making. This means that relations need to be repeatedly "performed" or the network will dissolve. They also assume that networks of relations are not intrinsically coherent, and may indeed contain conflicts. Social relations, in other words, are only ever in process and must be performed continuously. Abandoning structure altogether.
49
What is democracy according to the ancient Greek
‘Rule by the [common] People’ State then able to claim to represent the will of the people and conferring self-determination.
50
Substantive Definitions of Democracy
Focus on outcomes (It focuses on consequences of policy-making reflecting the will of the general public) If people wanted nationalisation of public utility, the government follow through then it fulfilled the criteria for this definition
The 'responsiveness rule’: Social outcomes responsive to preferences of the parties involved
51
Procedural Definitions of Democracy
Focus on procedures and institutions (Focuses on whether the institution functions accountably and transparently to the general public.)
52
Dahl expansions on the Procedural Definitions
1: Participation (or inclusion) The extent to which the citizen can participate in the political process, like who can run for office/universal suffrages. (In China only members of the Chinese Communist Party can be in office in the executive branch)
2: Contestation is the degree to which individuals and organisations feel free to promote their ideas. Freedom of Speech and Assembly.
53
Dahl's Five Criteria for Polyarchy
*Effective participation - make their views known to other members.
*Voting equality - the opportunity to vote, with votes counted as equal.
*Enlightened understanding - Learn about the consequences and alternatives of a proposal.
*Control of the agenda - the opportunity to choose if or how matters will be placed on the agenda.
*Inclusion of adults - all needed for the participation of the previous criteria
54
Dahl's Seven Concrete Policies for Polyarchy
*Elected officials - "Control over government decisions about policy is constitutionally vested in elected officials."
*Free and fair elections
*Inclusive suffrage -
*Right to run for office
*Freedom of expression - "Citizens have a right to express themselves without the danger of severe punishment on political matters.
*Alternative information - "Citizens have a right to seek out alternative sources of information. Moreover, alternative sources of information exist and are protected by laws."
*Associational autonomy - "citizens ... have a right to form relatively independent associations or organizations.'
55
Measure for both Substantive and Procedural
*Polity Score (More Procedural)
Yearly, for all countries from -10 to 10 (Democracy – Autocracy)
5 attributes: competitiveness and openness of recruitment, regulation of participation, competitive participation, executive constraints
*Freedom House (More Substantive)
Yearly, for all countries. Measuring different personal and political rights
56
Deliberative Democracy in Increasing Procedural Democracy
A form of democracy which stresses the participation of the people in collective decision-making through a process of rational and considered deliberation.
Example: UK Citizens Online Democracy (UKCOD), a citizen-created service designed to promote online discussion and information dissemination.
57
Direct Democracy
A political system where the citizens participate in the decision-making personally, contrary to relying on intermediaries or representatives. Through referendum or initiative.
58
Problem with Direct Democracy
*Critics have historically expressed doubts about the populace's capacity to participate, both in terms of numbers and ability. E.g. AV referendum only achieved 42.2% turnout, Brexit referendum high amount of misinformation
*The central concern of critics of this form of democracy is the perceived ease with which direct and popular democracy can lead to intolerance and demagogy with the potential for political leaders to court uninformed public opinion. (Tyranny of majority, 48.1% voted to remain)
*The over-fragmentation and conflict within direct democracy could lead to the rise of charismatic leaders. (Poli)
59
Potter's Pattern of Democratisations
*Modernisations - Number of social and economic factors that are seen as necessary for explaining the existence of consolidated democracies
*Transitions - The actions of political elites, the political choices and strategies they adopt and their commitment to democratisation explain the success (or otherwise) of transitions to democracy.
*Structural - related to long-term historical processes of changing social structures of class, state and transnational power
60
Representative Democracy
The election of government officials by the people being represented. Majority or plurality candidate elected.
61
Limitations of Democracy from Feminist Lens
Pateman argues that women are effectively consigned to the private sphere of social activity (principally the ‘home’) and that they tend to be dominated by men in both private and public spheres. For Pateman inequalities in the distribution of political power along gender lines are critically left unchallenged by many forms of democracy and democratic participation needs to be extended into the private sphere of life and especially into the organisation of the family.
62
Marxist critique of democracy
Ralph Miliband, parliamentary democracy is a sham by which the workers are pacified by the image of participation and democracy while actual power relations stayed intact.
63
Populism and Democracy
Schmitt viewed liberal democracy as inherently unstable, due to the tension between the liberal (pluralist, rule-of-law) and democratic (will of the people) components. For Schmitt, the sovereign is the one who decides the exception—hence, populists claiming to represent the “real people” may suspend liberal constraints in the name of democratic legitimacy.
E.g. Viktor Orbán in Hungary openly promotes an “illiberal democracy,” using electoral victories to undermine judicial independence, restrict media freedom, and consolidate power. Freedom House score fell from 92/100 in 2010 to 69/100 in 2023
64
Fall in Participations
In the United States, voter turnout for the 2022 midterm elections was 46.6%, a drop from 50% in 2018, reflecting waning public trust and engagement. Capital Riot.
65
Argument for compulsory voting
1. Increases Voter Turnout
Empirical Support: Countries with compulsory voting laws consistently have higher turnout.
Example: Australia, where voting is compulsory, has turnout rates around 91%, compared to ~55–65% in the U.S. (IDEA, 2022).
2. Reduces Class Bias in Participation
Empirical Support: Voluntary voting systems tend to overrepresent the interests of wealthier, older, and more educated citizens.
Study: Lijphart (1997) called low turnout "democracy’s unresolved dilemma," showing the underrepresentation of lower socioeconomic groups.
3. Strengthens Civic Engagement
Theory: Regular participation fosters a habit of engagement and increases political literacy.
Support: Franklin (2004) argues that institutional incentives, like compulsory voting, can generate long-term increases in political interest.
66
Marxism on Ideology
It mystifies and confuses subordinate classes by concealing from them the contradictions on which all class societies are based. It further fosters delusion or ‘false consciousness’ amongst the exploited proletariat, preventing them from recognizing the fact of their own exploitation.
67
Karl Popper and Liberalism on Ideology
*An instrument of social control to ensure compliance and subordination.
*Fascism and Communism impose certainty and make predictions based on a flawed understanding of science, often leading to unfalsifiable claims.
*Rejections of historicism or historical determinism. Emphasis liberalism is an open system
68
Can politics exist without ideology? A Zizekian and Althusserian No
Subjects are constituted through symbolic and imaginary structures. For Lacan, we don’t relate to the world directly — we relate through a symbolic network, a kind of virtual system of languages and meaning. Ideology likened to fantasy, helps to construct our social reality of antagonised reality.
Ideological Apparatus works through interpellations, where a subject is hailed into existence. Similarly without language and coherent symbols and signs one cannot communicate without other people, one is not recognised. Hence, ideology is important in structures it
69
Can politics exist without ideology? An Empirical No
*The declining relevance of the left/right divide has not led to the ‘end of ideology’ or the ‘end of history’; it has merely opened up new ideological spaces that have been filled by the likes of feminism, and green politics. It continues to be renewed. EU Green won 74 seats between 2019-2024 parliament up from 50 in 2014, UK Green up 4% last elections
*Heuristics substitute for information – works in the short term/when time is limited. Kahneman argues is unavoidable ideology and bias might be utilised in making decisions, especially on campaign
70
Can politics exist without ideology? Yes
*The collapse of communism and the near worldwide acceptance of market capitalism means that this rivalry has become irrelevant to modern politics. Politics has therefore come to revolve around ‘smaller’ questions to do with the effective management of the capitalist system. Mario Draghi Technocratic government. (European Central Bank)
*Elections force political parties to behave like businesses in the marketplace, formulating ‘products’ (policies) in the hope of attracting the largest number of ‘consumers’ (voters). Parties thus increasingly respond to consumer/voter demands, rather than trying to reshape these demands in the light of a pre-existing ideological vision. (Silvio Berlusconi)
71
Conservativism on Ideology
Born out of the belief that the world is largely beyond the capacity of the human mind to fathom. As Oakeshott sees ideology as abstract ‘systems of thought’; that is, sets of ideas that distort political reality because they claim to explain what is, frankly, incomprehensible. Hence emphasising pragmaticism based on things that is trialed and tested
72
Confirmation Bias
When presented with ‘facts’ people often accept those that conform to their existing views, and reject other forms of evidence.
73
Three functions of ideology
View of Social Reality, Social Solution, and Programme of Action
74
Charles Jones on Ideology
'Provide some explanation of how things have come
to be as they are, some indication of where they are heading
… and some overriding belief'
75
The context for End of History
Hegel believed that history culminated in an absolute moment - a moment in which a final, rational form of society and state became victorious.
Human history and the conflict that characterized it was
based on the existence of "contradictions"
76
The End of History
Fukuyama's prescribed change was in no way made inevitable by the material conditions in which either country found itself on the eve of the reform, but instead came about as the result of the victory of one idea over another. WW2 Defeated Fascism + end of cold war defeat of communism+ end of class politic (Reform UK did a lot better amongst C2DE voters (20%) than among ABC1 voters (11%))
77
Fukuyama rejections of modern class antagonism
Thus black poverty in the United States is not the inherent product of liberalism, but is rather the "legacy of slavery and racism"
78
What might remain according to Fukuyama
Modern liberalism itself was historically a consequence of the weakness of religiously-based societies which, failing to agree on the nature of the good life, could not provide even the minimal preconditions of peace and stability. (Religion)
Nationality
79
Rejections of the Fukyuyama model
*Technocratic pragmatism creates the illusion that we're all on the same team, and that any remaining problems are just technical glitches. But for Žižek, this is deeply ideological, because it hides the fundamental antagonisms of capitalism. Ideology at its most sublime, cannot be perceived.
*Return of the Suppress ideological conflict doesn’t go away — it just comes back in disavowed forms. The rise of far-right nationalism, religious fundamentalism, or reactionary populism aren’t anomalies; they’re symptoms of the failure of the so-called post-ideological liberal order.
80
Clear example of ideology
On average people think 24% of their country’s population is immigrants when in fact it is only 11%
81
Philosophical basis of Marxism
Come on, you know it already. If not why the fuck did you spend like 40 hours reading Capital
82
According to Marx, what immediate policy should be implemented
1)Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2) A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3) Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4) Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5) Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6) Centralization of the means of communication and transport.
7) Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state.
8) Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially
for agriculture.
9) Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries.
10) Free education for all children in public schools.
83
First Stage of Communism
In the first stage, under the revolutionary dictatorship, when the state retains its oppressive nature but is turned against bourgeois counter-revolutionaries, there are still classes, wage labour, and a division of labour. But capital will be collectively owned.
84
Second Stage of Communism
The classless society. Here, the division between mental and physical labour has vanished, and nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity: anybody can become skilled at whatever work he or she wishes
85
Criticism of Marxism (unscientific)
Popper argued that scientific theories must be falsifiable — they must make predictions that can, in principle, be proven wrong. He saw Marxism, particularly in its historical and economic predictions, as unfalsifiable because, when events contradicted Marxist predictions, Marxists would revise the theory or reinterpret the facts to fit the theory. (Historicism)
86
Counterargument of it being unscientific
Marxists counter that historical materialism isn’t like physics or biology — it doesn’t work with isolated variables and controlled experiments. It’s a science of tendencies and structures, not of simple predictions. Just as Darwinian evolution isn't "falsified" by species surviving in unpredicted ways, historical materialism aims to explain the structural dynamics of class, labor, and capital. (Talk about the emancipatory potential, and it doesn't have a timescale).
In addition, many descriptions of Capitalism analysis have scientific backing.
87
Lenin vs Luxembourg
*Emphasising the role of a disciplined vanguard party to lead the proletariat and shape the conditions for the revolution. He reconceptualised the state as an instrument of class domination and extended Marxist analysis to imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. (voluntarism rather than determinism.)
*Rosa Luxemburg critiqued Lenin’s centralism, arguing for spontaneity and mass democracy in proletarian struggle. She emphasised the dialectic between reform and revolution and insisted that socialist transformation must be rooted in broad working-class self-activity, not elite leadership. (Revolutions is immanent)
88
Frankfurt revisions and French Poststructuralism
They diagnosed how capitalist domination extends through culture and consciousness, arguing that ideology operates not only economically but also through media, rationality, and everyday life. (Cultural Hegemony) (rejected economic determinism and instead analyzed how power, ideology, and desire operate across dispersed structures.)
89
How do we categorise Liberalism in History
1. All European country have their specific historical context, which all emphasise different aspects of liberal values. E.g English Isolationism, German and Italian Unification
2. British liberalism is usually seen to be of greater antiquity and more empirical in character. (Associated with Locke) Continental liberalism is related more to the French Enlightenment and the overactive use of ‘abstract reason’ in human affairs. (Kant and Voltaire)
3. The rise of industrial capitalism can be seen as coterminous with liberalism. Private Property needs to be held by private individuals, and free trade without government interference.
90
Context of Liberalism
The Enlightenment signalled the unfettered and experimental use of reason in human affairs. Many fields are challenged.
The discontent within the French and American regimes implies that liberalism, as a radical idea, is starting to take root in providing a clear understanding of social reality and its solutions.
91
Proto-liberalism in the UK
Whigs then became the defenders of parliamentary supremacy, upholding the rule of law and the defence of their landed property. Some supported notions of freedom of the press and speech as fundamental rights. (See Magna Carta and Oliver Cornwell, in stopping the monarch overreach)
92
John Locke's Theory
Locke’s theory of natural rights leads to his justification of the social contract. In the state of nature, while people have natural rights, there is no impartial authority to enforce these rights or resolve disputes. To better protect their rights, individuals agree to form a government through a social contract, giving up some of their freedoms in exchange for the protection of their life, liberty, and property.
Keyword: Inalienable rights, Individual soverignity
93
Individualism
This stems from the belief that individuals are distinct and proprietors of their own bodies, which owes nothing to wider society. In addition, the goods or products produced by one labour should be understood in relation to the extension of oneself.
94
Hayek on Restraint
1) Restraints are usually regarded as physical – prisons and pointed guns.
2) They are external to the individual: a restraint is something that X imposes on Y.
3) Restraint involves deliberate, intentional action. One cannot, in this reading, unintentionally restrain someone.
95
Implications for Hayek's theory of Restraint
As Restraint involves intentional actions, deprivations of powers to do something do not count. Negative Right, freedom from government interventions
96
Some Criticism of Hayek on Restraint
1) As the three faces of power demonstrate, one could subtly influence one's preferences, depriving them of certain autonomy of choices.
2) When a business/buisneses is situated within a monopoly or a cartel, they do actively/intentionally restrain consumer choices and wages, which could cause poverty. Does that suggest government interventions in breaking up businesses? Stemming from the assumption that monopolies are induced to shelter from competition by the government. Opening up technocratic goverment control of public goods
97
Hayek on liberalism
He believed that rules and values emerge from moral individuals within society. This led to his distinctions between spontaneous order (the market) and constructed orders (like bureaucracy). In addition, central planning is inherently flawed, as the government lacks the knowledge to plan efficiently.
98
Hayek on Justices
As spontaneous order lacks an intended goal, every individual pursues their purpose and fulfilment. Hence, social justice is meaningless because the inequality created by the market is unintentional. (Deliberately brought about)
Justice as a Property of Human Action
99
Criticism of Hayek
*Significant power imbalances exist due to factors like concentrated ownership, limited job opportunities, and the inherent vulnerability of workers who depend on wages for survival. This can lead to situations where workers are compelled to accept exploitative conditions despite formally "voluntary" agreements. (Rejections of spotaneous order)
*Neglect of situations where exploitation is not an unintended outcome but a deliberate strategy employed by employers to maximise profits at the expense of workers.
(Dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period)
100
Three Reasons for the Emergence of Modern Liberalism
1. Modern industrialised society
(scale of industry, corporations, hierarchy, bureaucracy)
2. Extensions of the franchise
(increasingly mobilised and organised working class – threat
to private property)
3. Free market imperfections
(markets not balancing themselves)
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Modern liberalism presumptions
Civil society is the precondition to the exercise of individual freedom, which cannot be premised on others’ unfreedom. Freedom coincides with the common good. In this way, the freedom of the individual is reconciled with society. Rights are dependent on the recognition from others, hence the common good
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Rawls three principles of justice and where does it stem from
The greatest equal liberty principle
The difference principle
The equal opportunity principle
Rawls's principles of justice, such as the difference principle, are similar to Kant's categorical imperative in that they apply to everyone, regardless of their personal desires or circumstances.
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The greatest equal liberty principle
This prescribes the inalienable rights that every rational individual would desire.
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Differences principle
Rawls' view is that inequalities can actually be just, as long as they are to the benefit of the least well off. His argument for this position rests heavily on the claim that morally arbitrary factors (for example, the family one is born into) should not determine one's life chances or opportunities. Veil of Ignorance Maximin approch
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The equal opportunity principle
All have a reasonable opportunity to acquire the skills based on which merit is assessed, even if one might not have the necessary material resources, due to a beneficial inequality stemming from the difference principle.
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Robert Nozick critique of Rawls
Nozick establishes first how free transactions can lead to inequalities. Justice is then view through a historical lens, not patterned. What matters is whether holdings are acquired justly, not whether they conform to an egalitarian pattern. Redistribution treats individuals as means to an end
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Communitarian critique of Rawls
Mutual respect for the autonomy and rationality of all individuals. Each member of the community is bound by the universal moral law and acts out of respect for others’ dignity as autonomous rational agents.
The form or idea of the reason can be universal, but the substance of what they actually decide is contingent or relative to the political situation. Hence, law is not sometimes prescribed as absolute morality, but rather rationally fashioned by the community. Hence, if the community decided that the market is the substance in most effective achieving this goal, then neoliberalism still holds.
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JS Mill
Harm Principle, Tyranny of the Majority, and Pluralism
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Conservatism Origin in Philosophy
Aristotle's empirical methods emphasise that Morality and Political Sciences, unlike natural sciences, lack experts and concrete observable patterns; human experience over generations (inherited knowledge) is the main source of knowledge.
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Conservatism and Aristocrat
It represented the negative defensive posture of a declining aristocratic class in European societies. In this sense, the time span of conservatism. The Crown and Church are seen as foundations of order, and the king possessed divine rights.
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Conservative as an Ideology of the Pragmatics
Conservatism is seen primarily as a form of political pragmatism – a doctrine with no principled content. It simply utilises what has worked previously. Unable to fully conceptualise reactionary or libertarian actions within conservative circles
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Conservatism as a defence for a traditional way of life
Conservatives are those rooted in an institutionalised way of life, offering an immanent defence of a particular order. The defence usually only arises in a ‘situation’ of challenge to institutions confronted with transcendent ideas.
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Conservative as a disposition
A tendency of the human mind. It is a disposition averse to change, and it springs partly from a distrust of the unknown and a corresponding reliance on experience rather than on theoretical reasoning.
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Traditionalist Conservatism
Theoretical reason is disparaged over and against prejudice and practical reason. The state is a communal enterprise with spiritual and organic qualities. The constitution of the community is not a human artefact but the cumulative, unpredictable result of years of practice.
*Natural Law
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Edmund Burke
Prejudices are not irrational biases but pre-judgments grounded in long-standing experience. They help guide behavior when reason alone cannot provide certainty in complex moral and political matters.
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Organic Society
Organicism: Society is an organic whole, not a mechanical construct. It evolves over time, shaped by culture, religion, tradition, and experience. Individuals are not autonomous atoms but are embedded in social relations and intergenerational ties. It adapts to desires and needs over time, rather than some revolutionary ideology utopia. (Interdependent)
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The importance of Authority according to Burke
He opposed the universalism of abstract rights (e.g., “Rights of Man”) as destructive of custom, loyalty, and reverence. He distinguishes between “real rights”, inherited and historically grounded. It allows for wisdom to pass along naturally
Deference (Partnership with the dead and the living)
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Critique of Burke
In regards to this formation of legitimate social order, Strauss does not necessarily support Burke's opinion—that order cannot be established by individual wise people, but exclusively by a culmination of individuals with historical knowledge of past functions to use as a foundation. (Natural Law utilises rational thinking to formulate rational goods)
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Romantic conservatism
Strong nostalgia for an idealised pastoral, rural, frequently quasi-feudal past. The general tenor of thought amongst the romantic conservatives was anti-industrial. They disliked the alienation and dehumanisation of the mechanistic
industrial culture. (Sublimity of nature that cannot be captured by Reason)
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Paternalistic Conservatism
It interprets the duties of rule to imply fairly wide-ranging state activity to foster a good life for all citizens – a form of responsible aristocratic noblesse oblige.
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Michael Oakeshott
Civil Association: A mode of association where individuals are united under a common legal framework, but not toward a shared substantive purpose. Law is non-instrumental, existing to enable coexistence rather than to engineer outcomes.
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Disraeli
He saw society as naturally hierarchical and emphasised the obligations of those at the top to those below. To conserve wider social order.
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Counterargument to Strauss on Burke
Burke’s point was not to undermine all reason in politics, but to suggest that politics should not be determined by abstract theoretical notions such as natural rights. The
fact of the existence over time of an institution or custom was evidence of an intrinsic practical rationalism. Change might be needed, but it should not be premised on a priori abstract ideas.
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Conservative on rights
Rights are legal concessions from the community. In other words, rights are problem-solving devices within political communities. ‘Just as you cannot have a private language, because words derive their meaning from use, and therefore it is inevitable that language inheres in community ..., so you cannot have private rights which no one else acknowledges. When we talk about rights, we are talking about communal life’ (Waldegrave 1978, 90).
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Criticism of Conservatism (Post-Structuralism)
It assumes society as a coherent whole with inseparable parts. However, meaning and social identity are always reinterpreted and open to change, exactly because human nature is complex, cannot be fully be explained by reason. Hence, traditional answers and solutions can not answer new questions. There is always excess
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Hobbes on Conflict
Three principal quarrel: Competition (For self-interest gain), Diffidence (For safety) and Glory (For own self-reputation) The first use violence, to make themselves masters of other men’s persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons or by reflection in their kindred, their friends, their nation.
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Liberal Feminism
* Women as autonomous and responsible moral agents
* Law reform should incorporate women within the existing legal order
* Individualism and ‘choice’
* Rights in public sphere as opposed to private sphere (state should generally stay out of the private realm)
* Inequality as based on the consequences of the social construction of gender, not natural differences
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Mary Wollstonecraft
* They should not be treated as mere objects or property of the husband, instead emphasising the inherent value of women in themselves. (to society as a whole) (Rejections of double standards)
* Men and women are equal in God's eyes, which means they are both subject to the same moral law. (Same natural rights) (but this does not imply that men and women has the same ability)
* Rational Educations (Critic of sensibility capable of rational thought and deserves to be educated.)
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Critic of Liberal Feminism
- Underplays structural/cultural constraints (They argue that even if women are not dependent upon individual men, they are still dependent upon a patriarchal state. Females are being constituted as others, limiting their ability and potential)
- Limited scope of analysis, mainstream liberal feminism reflects only the values of middle-class, heterosexual, white women and fails to appreciate the position of women of different races, cultures, or classes. (White Saviour Complex) Multiple sources of oppression.
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8 Key Features of Radical Feminism
1. Relationship between men and women in society is one of oppression
2. This form of oppression is the MOST fundamental in society
3. Men as a class benefit from it
4. Men as a class use social systems/other methods of control to keep women down
5. While gender is a tool used in women’s oppression, women as a group are oppressed based on their sex (ie reproductive biology)
6. Regulation of female sexuality, & ensuring male access to it, is central to this oppression
7. Unequal power relations are eroticised within society (eg. through porn)
8. The challenges public/private distinction set up by liberalism, which hides eg. gender-based harms to women and children in the home
9. An effective politics can only occur through gender revolution
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Public and Private Distinctions?
Yes, the state should be constrained to prevent overreach.
No, domestic private problems can not be resolved by an individual in their own accord. Take domestic abuse, for example. Even though it happens in one's private family, the state still has a positive obligation to prevent and intervene in this matter because it is caused by greater structural issues and unstated assumptions within the society, where the patriarchy enforces the dominance of men and the norm that even when faced with violence, women should be submissive.
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Simone de Beauvoir
Gender is not a biological destiny but a social and existential construction. Woman is made into "the Other" through social processes that define her in relation to man as the norm or subject.
Existentialist Philosophy - Men succeed in the world by transcendence (They are free in the ability to act), but immanence is the lot of women (They are still trapped by the inherent structures)
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" distinguishes the terms "sex" and "gender", and that suggests that "gender" is an aspect of identity which is "gradually acquired". (Marraige as a method of suppressions)
Men have constructed woman as the mirror of male subjectivity, but never as an autonomous subject capable of returning the gaze in full reciprocity. (Master and Slave Dialetic)
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Critic of Radical Feminism
* Women who do not fit the theory tend to be accused of suffering from ‘false consciousness’!
* Focusing on women as women tends to neglect different experiences different groups of women have, a problem exacerbated by the claim women’s victimhood and oppression is trans-historical - experiences of oppression vary depending, for example, on race, sexuality and/or class
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Socialist Feminism
1. Combining the role of capitalism with the role of gender in explaining women’s oppression
2. Stresses financial dependence on men and therefore property relations and laws
3. Focuses on the gendered division of labour within the economy and women’s role as mothers/child carers
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Postmodern Feminism
Language constructs reality and that power is embedded in social norms, shaping identities and limiting agency. They seek to challenge traditional binary oppositions (e.g., man/woman, culture/nature) and deconstruct hierarchies
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Judith Butler
Performance of gender expressions reinforces one social role. (Interpellations)
Gender and desire can be "flexible, free floating and not caused by other stable factors
Emphasis sex is already a gendered categories
The connections between gender identity and sexuality, to establish a stable identity, demand the notion of homosexuality, which remains prohibited but necessarily within the bounds of culture.
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Anti-Feminism on Human Nature
‘Differences in ability are now known to result from differences in brain structure laid down under the influence of hormones during pre-natal development’ and if women are disadvantaged when competing with males in the world of work, it is because their abilities are significantly different.
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Counterargument to Anti-Feminist
Either accept the study, but recognise that women deserve the same equal rights as male. (Alternatively, rejects the conclusions, as the world of work is established via the patriarchy, hence females are naturally disadvantaged)
Or rejects the studies. As Thomas Kuhn has argued powerfully, disinterested or value-free research is almost impossible; those who set out to look for sex differences are likely to find some. Ultimately, research dedicated to proving or disproving the existence of innate sexual differences is likely to be as inconclusive as research also situated in a wider society, and test subjects might be influenced by nurture.
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Patriarchy
Patriarchy as a political structure seeks to control and subjugate women so that their possibilities for making choices about their sexuality, childrearing, mothering, loving and labouring are curtailed. Its purpose is to destroy woman ’s consciousness about her potential power, which derives from the necessity of society to reproduce itself.
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Feminism and the market
Women should be ‘liberated’ to join an exploited workforce, which is not entirely resolved by the response that first women must gain economic independence through working, then they must gain revolutionary consciousness by being exploited and finally they can liberate themselves by a socialist revolution. (Doubleday, compulsion to consume)
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Bodily Oppression
Economic Exploitation of Reproduction (Federici)
In capitalist societies, unpaid reproductive labour (child-rearing, domestic work) is feminised and privatised, forming the hidden foundation of capitalist production.
Women's biological capacity to reproduce becomes a site of expropriation (e.g. forced sterilisation, surrogacy industries, or state incentives for or against reproduction) (Female Genital Mutilation)
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Image Oppression
Women come to discipline themselves in accordance with idealised images: slimness, beauty, heterosexual desirability.
This leads to what Bartky calls “psychic alienation”: the woman's body becomes something she feels she must manage and objectify, leading to practices like dieting, cosmetic surgery, or makeup as obligations. (Object to be looked at, not an active subject)
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Pro-differences feminist
Women have different capacities, thought processes and ways of moral reasoning. In male culture, these divergent ‘knowledges’ are suppressed by masculine logic and ethics and the universalising (male) approach deriving from the Enlightenment, which excludes plurality and devalues difference. Female Researcher utilides more qualitative data
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First Wave Feminism
* Emerged in the 19th century as a response to the exclusion of women from political participation and legal rights.
* Early feminists focused on securing fundamental legal and political equality, especially the right to vote.
* Other issues included property rights, marriage laws, and access to education.
Achievement: Women’s suffrage (right to vote) (e.g., U.S. – 1920, UK – 1918/1928, France – 1944).
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Second Wave Feminism
* The Personal is Political – Coined by Carol Hanisch, emphasising how personal experiences reflect broader social structures. Breakdown of the private and public distinctions. No equal opportunity to participate in politics. The UK and the US favour confrontational vs consensual. Margret Thacher voice training.
* Patriarchy & Systemic Oppression – Feminists argued that sexism was not just individual but institutionalised. Bound up in capitalism and family structures. Women as unpaid workers (systematic subjugation of women to produce labour forces) Even though some part of the gender pay remains unexplained
* Intersectionality (Early Stages) – While early second-wave feminism was largely centred on white middle-class women, figures like bell hooks and Audre Lorde pushed for inclusion of race, class, and sexuality in feminist discourse
Achievement: Reproductive Rights – Legalization of birth control (e.g., the pill) and abortion (Roe v. Wade), Equal Pay & Workplace Rights – Push for equal wages, anti-discrimination laws (e.g., Title IX, 1972; Equal Pay Act, 1963), Sexual Liberation – Critique of traditional gender roles and sexuality; rise of LGBTQ+ advocacy.
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Third Wave Feminism
Key Concepts
* Intersectionality – A deeper recognition that race, class, sexuality, disability, and other factors shape experiences of oppression.
* Sex-Positivity – Advocated for women's autonomy over their bodies and sexuality, challenging past feminist critiques of pornography and sex work.
* Gender Fluidity & Queer Theory – Acknowledged that gender is socially constructed and non-binary, influenced by theorists like Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 1990).
* Empowerment & Media Representation – Embraced new forms of feminist expression through music, art, and digital spaces.
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Critique of Third Wave Feminism
* Politically naive - ignoring where real power lies – focus on identities instead of institutions; enabling problems to continue
* Inward-looking and Western-centric – The struggle of Islamic women in different countries? Perspectives of privileged women?
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Post-feminism
It critiques feminism’s tendency to universalise women’s experiences, emphasising instead individuality, choice, consumerism, and the fluidity of gender identities. This fragmentation and internal critique destabilise feminism as a fixed or coherent ideology, suggesting instead that feminism might function more like a discourse, plural, shifting, and embedded in broader cultural narratives.
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Critique of Feminism
Creates the impression that feminist arguments no longer needed; anyone making them pushes their particular self-interest. There are still more works to be done, like sexual harassment
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Is Feminism an ideology
Feminism, as an ideology, prescribes a moral direction: the pursuit of gender equality and the dismantling of patriarchy. This aligns with classical definitions of ideology as a set of ideas that both explain the world and offer visions for changing it. It informs practices, identities, and institutions by promoting ideas such as bodily autonomy, intersectionality, and the critique of heteronormativity—thus acting as a framework for both critique and praxis.
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Female Political Participations
House of Commons: As of July 2024, women hold 263 out of 650 seats (40.5%), marking the highest proportion to date.
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Unequal Pay
Overall Gap: In April 2024, the gender pay gap among full-time employees was 7.0% In 2023, women held 52 CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies, making up 10.4% of the total.
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Sexual Harassment
Within the 16-24 age group, 23% of women and 8% of men reported experiencing sexual harassment in the previous year.
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Political actor on political communications
Political actors will utilise the media to provide information, exert pressure, and influence public opinion to persuade or inform the public to particular ends. This in turn, changes political and social attitudes and behaviour, and quite direct attempts to re-socialise citizens into new ways of thinking and behaving
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Party Politics and Political Communications
Communicate with the electorate or those they govern, and they need to get the message across about their policies, their ideas, and their plans. (Move towards Marketing technique)
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Chomsky's six structural filters
Ownership: Major media outlets are large corporations, integrated into broader economic interests. Their political messaging tends to avoid critiques of capitalism, corporate power, or elite consensus.
Advertising: Media are funded largely by advertisers, not the audience. Political communication unfavorable to corporate or consumerist ideals is filtered out or marginalized.
Sourcing: Journalists rely on official sources (governments, think tanks, PR offices). This creates a dependency on elite institutions for framing political narratives.
Flak: Powerful actors (governments, lobbies) can organize negative responses—economic, legal, or reputational—against dissenting media, discouraging alternative political messaging.
Anti-Communism (or broader ideological control): While initially "anti-communism" during the Cold War, this filter now includes broader ideological frameworks (e.g., "war on terror," "national security," "democracy promotion") that shape acceptable political speech.
Chomsky ultimately argues that the media construct a narrow window of thinkable thought—a consensus space where only certain forms of political communication are legible.
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Viewer in relation to political messages
* First, people make different sense of the same message
* Second, interpretations are socially patterned and not merely individual. People do not just make up their interpretations of messages; rather they draw on prior knowledge and values, social group and subculture membership, to develop meaning and understanding.
* Third, reception (and meaning) is neither fixed nor stable, and changes over time and in different contexts.
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Political communications
Circulation of political messages among and between different actors to achieve certain objectives.
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BBC Studies
* Conservative politicians (50% more than Labour)
* Business representatives outnumbered trade union reps 5 to 1
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The Impact of Television
McLuhan states that the medium which transmits the content often limits and influences how things are expressed, similar to a lightbulb, even though in itself doesn't have content, but it creates the "space" in darkness. This is to say that TV favours emotion, immediacy, and presence over rational debate as a medium. It flattens complex political discourse into soundbites and visual cues. It creates an "acoustic space" of simultaneity, where distinctions between fact, fiction, and performance blur.
* Promotional culture and sensationlism
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The impact of Social Media
Social media appears participatory, but it commodifies political expression:
* Circulation over deliberation: The value lies in visibility, not in thoughtful dialogue.
* Affective capture: Posts are optimised for clicks, outrage, and performance, not reasoned argument.
* False equality: Everyone has a voice, but not all voices are amplified equally—algorithmic hierarchies reign.
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Three General Trends within Political Communications
* The increased centrality of the politician’s image (or the destruction of the opposition’s) and the reduction of emphasis on policy or issues. (Authentic common people image)
* Increased reliance on what McNair identifies as ‘myth and symbol’ through which the ‘fears, anxieties, and deep-rooted desires of a culture should be uncovered and tapped into’
* The reliance on symbols of power and status, particularly when this can be attached to an incumbent party or individual
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Recent phenomenon concerning the Media and Populism
Politics as Entertainment = Trivialization of Democratic Process
When political news looks like a reality show, people begin to see governance as a game, not a serious public affair. Citizens feel that real issues (poverty, justice, inequality) are ignored in favour of who embarrassed themselves on TV or what someone tweeted.
➤ Result: Voters grow skeptical that politics can address their needs or that politicians are serious actors.
2. Focus on Scandal and Corruption
Tabloid media thrives on exposing scandals, dirt, and moral failure. While this might seem like holding power accountable, it often leads to a blanket suspicion: "They’re all corrupt."
➤ Result: People feel powerless or apathetic—“Why vote? They’re all the same.”
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Edelman Trust Barometer 2022 (Trust in Media)
o Trust in media (global average): 37%
o Trust in media (US): 26%, second lowest among surveyed nations.
o Trust in social media as a news source: 17%.
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Conditions for Post-Truth
* Decline in trust in politics and government: People feel mainstream politics has failed, doesn’t represent their point of views. Such as the growth of the economy, but yet standard of living decreased
* Rise of media as a machine: The Media now tells people what they want to hear, rather than promoting political deliberation.
* Technology and internet media: Social media amplifies misinformation and reinforces biases. (A lack of shared authorities for adjudicating truth claims, especially with the demise of traditional journalism as a gatekeeper of issues and public truth claims. Everythinh have been fragmanted)
* The Backfire Effect: Studies (e.g., Nyhan & Reifler, 2010) show that when people are confronted with facts that contradict their beliefs, they tend to reject the facts and believe their original position even more strongly.
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The Market Model of the Media
Media organizations like any private business, where the primary goal is to generate profit for owners and shareholders. Media products (e.g., news, entertainment) are tailored to audience preferences to maximize revenue, akin to retail companies selling goods
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Tactic for Media Company
News is treated as a product, with "hero vs. villain" narratives simplifying complex issues into marketable binaries. This aligns with consumer preferences for clear moral stakes, as seen in climate change coverage framing activists like Greta Thunberg as "heroes" and politicians as "villains"
Media’s emphasis on personalities (e.g., politicians as celebrities) stems from audience identification with individuals rather than abstract ideas. This is evident in the "rhetorical presidency," where leaders like Obama use personal narratives to persuade
People respond quicker to negative words than positive words. In lab experiments, flash the word “cancer”, “bomb” or “war” up at someone and they can hit a button in response quicker than if that word is “baby”, “smile” or “fun” (despite these pleasant words being slightly more common).
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Statistics of post-truth
70% of Trump’s 2016 campaign statements contained inaccuracies, yet his election victory exemplified how emotional appeals ("alternative facts") override empirical evidence
63.9% of the global population uses social media, but engagement is fragmented: Brazil leads in Instagram influencers (15.8% share), where sensationalist content thrives
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Structualism vs Intentionalism
Structuralism implies a world of stability, even stasis – a world in which actors are weighed down by the structural constraints they bear. Intentionalism, by contrast, implies the absence of constraint – a world, in short, in which there are essentially no rules of the game and in which there is a close correspondence between observed and intended outcomes.
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Three approaches in understanding change
* The laws which govern micro-historical processes and specific political events may be time and context-dependent, but the laws of motion of history itself are here assumed universal and trans-historical. (Agentless unfolding of History)
* Rules can be held to govern social and political interaction, those rules are context-dependent. Any social science of political development must be restricted to specific contexts and periods of time for which the assumption that the rules of the game remain essentially static is most plausible.
* For change is ongoing. Consequently, the ‘rules of the game’ can never be assumed static. Similarly, each context can be disaggregated further (either spatially or temporally) into constituent units, each of which is unique and must be understood in its own terms.
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Synchronic analysis
Removes its subject from the temporal sequence of events, relocating it in an abstract theoretical realm outside of the temporal domain, from whence it can be exposed to a more detailed structural interrogation.
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Limitations of Synchronic Approach
At best this tells us something about the form of the state at a specific moment in time. It can tell us nothing about the process or even the extent of change; in fact it can tell us nothing about change at all, operating as it does in an artificial analytical realm from which temporality has been abstracted.
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Comparative Static Approach
Comparative statics is essentially a variant of synchronic analysis in which the analyst compares and contrasts synchronic analyses conducted at different moments in time, thereby comparing the form and structure of the system in question at various points in its development.
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Limitations of the Comparative Static Approach
It gives us no real clue as to the process of change itself. It tells us, for instance, nothing about the character, pace or temporality of change. Binary Oppositions such as modernity vs postmodernity. Unless somethings stays consistence within hisotrical analysis such as material conditions or nation political climate, which imply stages could be form form analysis then it should not be used .
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Diachronic Approach
A diachronic analysis emphasises the process of change over time . Rather than assume that the development of the system in question, say the state, can be split up into phases during which its structure and form can be assumed static (as in the comparative static approach), the developmental path and the pace of change is treated as a matter for empirical investigation.
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Revolutions
Process of institutional/systemic change in which the defining features of the social and political system are significantly recast.
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J curve model
J-curve model posits when “the state’s capacity to deliver material benefits dramatically fails to keep pace with expectations”, revolutions will happen. (Revolutionary Junctures)
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Skolpol
Theda Skocpol on Revolutions
(Primarily from States and Social Revolutions, 1979)
1. Structuralist Approach
Skocpol pioneered a structuralist, comparative-historical method to analyze social revolutions. She argued that revolutions are not primarily the result of ideologies, conspiracies, or conscious movements, but emerge from structural contradictions and crises within states and societies.
2. Definition of Social Revolution
Skocpol distinguishes social revolutions from political revolutions. A social revolution involves:
A fundamental transformation of both the political and social structures.
Often marked by violent class upheaval and the collapse of the state apparatus.
3. Triple Causal Structure
She identifies three interrelated structures that explain revolutions:
International pressures and competition (e.g., military defeat or diplomatic isolation).
State breakdown (fiscal crises, loss of administrative capacity).
Class relations and agrarian structures (especially the role of peasantry).
These create a "window" where revolution becomes possible.
4. Case Studies
She analyzes:
French Revolution (1789)
Russian Revolution (1917)
Chinese Revolution (1949)
In all three, she traces how state crisis + peasant mobilization = social revolution. She contrasts these with cases like Prussia and Japan, where similar crises led to reform from above rather than revolution.
5. Against Voluntarism
Skocpol pushes back against theories that prioritize revolutionary agency (e.g., Marxist-Leninist or Tocquevillean voluntarism), emphasizing instead unintended consequences and institutional dynamics.
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Richard Rorty
One needs to differentiate between Issue politics, which focuses on specific issues or rights (they are not seen as contributing to a future and different society, but wish for change in the present, without the aspiration to build a new society) vs movement politics, which dogmatically prescribes a universal resolution. (What about Green Politic, which are in themselves fragmented and easily adopt to different ideas.
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Liberalism inherent biases
*Liberal-democratic societies were thus non-ideological, or claimed to be so, in the sense that no single belief system was imposed on their citizens, who were left free to manifest their adherence to whatever political ideas they professed.
*Requires economic freedom for its operation – the freedom to start businesses, choose one's employment, enter into contracts voluntarily, and exchange goods and services in a market relatively free from excessive control.
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Freeden
Decontextualise/decontest certain words and meanings. ( e.g. Liberalism defines freedom as ...)
