Normative Political theory Flashcards
Definition Normative Political Theory
The study of concepts and principles for evaluating, critiquing, and prescribing political action, events, and institutions.
Characteristics:
Engages in normative claims.
Involves prescriptive or evaluative statements that require coherent and defendable arguments.
Distinct from Empirical Approach:
Doesn’t take a position in ontology or epistemology.
Concerned with the actual world of politics.
Aims to understand how political events are normatively evaluated.
Core Themes in Political Theory:
Analyzing Political Affairs:
Focus on themes such as power, legitimacy, authority, justice, equality, rights, ideology, and obligation.
Normative Focus:
Normative political theorists integrate empirical claims into their analyses.
History of Political Thought Definition
A subdiscipline of Political Theory that examines canonical thinkers and their influence.
History of Political Thought: Approaches:
Exegetical textual analysis.
Historical ideas in context.
Historical ideas applied to contemporary problems
Fact/Value Distinction: Traditional View:
Positivist separation of facts (what is) and values (what should be).
Fact/Value distinction Critique:
Contested by Frankfurt School theorists, suggesting value judgments are inherent in empirical political science.
Empirical vs. Normative Statements:
Empirical Statements: Describe factual occurrences.
Normative Statements: Convey value judgments or prescribe actions.
Normative Arguments
Structure:
Normative arguments consist of at least one normative premise (Y) often combined with empirical premises (Z).
Normative Arguments
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).
John Rawls’ Theory of Justice:
Principles
Consistent with specific judgments of justice.
Impartial, derived from behind a ‘veil of ignorance.’
Political Theory and Political Science:
Analytical Separation:
Empirical and normative claims can be analytically separate.
Political Theory and Political Science:
integration
Comparative political science is needed to discover the best form of government.
Frankfurt School on Fact/Value:
Contested View: Adorno, Horkheimer, and Habermas argue that value judgments are inescapable in empirical political science.
Contextualist Turn:
Institutionalist Turn: Rawls instigated an institutionalist turn in political theory.
Contextualist Turn: Explores weaknesses of Rawls, leading to areas like non-ideal theory, global distributive justice, closed societies, just migration, and self-determination.
Bridging the Gap: Political Theory/Science:
Political Science can include value judgements
in deciding how to study and what to study
Methodology Debate: Should the study of politics be methods-driven or problem-solving?
Combining Normative and Empirical Work:
Examples:
Empirical study of normative attitudes/beliefs.
Studying institutionally embedded norms.
Qualitative case studies.
Quantitative comparative studies.
