People and their work (final exam prep) Flashcards
Thomas Hobbes
- Wrote Leviathan in 1651 in light of the English Civil War (bad reception towards it)
- Believes in individualism and self-preservation.
- Believes in absolute monarchy IF the sovereign respects and defends the individualism and self-preservation of others.
- Political power comes from the people, not God.
- Conservative view of state power
Plato
-Wrote “The Republic” around 375 BCE
-Talks about the art of governing
- How politics ought to be
- Politics is to create Justice
- A just state is one that is ruled by Philosophers, and focuses on the good of the people
John Locke
- Wrote “Two Treatises of Government” in 1689.
- Father of Liberalism (Classical)
-Believed in the natural rights of Self-preservation, liberty, and ownership of property.
- Believed the state should have minimal interference with the people and should only intervene to preserve these natural rights
-Representative democracy
Niccolo Machiavelli
- Wrote “The Prince” in 1532 during the period of the Renaissance.
-Analyze politics as they really are (struggle for power) rather than how they ‘ought’ to be
-Ruler must have Virtue ( Wisdom, Strategy, Ruthlessness, Strength, Bravery, etc) to overcome Fortuna (Random factors a ruler may face)
-Politics is all about power and requires dirty hands. The end justifies the means.
-Strong reliance on Hard Power and a typical framework for modern-day totalitarianism.
Karl Marx
-Wrote the “Communist Manifesto” in 1848
-Talks about how politics is negative as it is one social class oppressing another
-Social class should be erased
-Capitalism should be replaced by Communism through revolution
-power is in the economic realm and is oppressive
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Jean Jaques Rousseau
-Wrote “Social Contract” in 1762. Inspiration for the French Revolution
- Talks about the dynamic between the ruler and the ruled.
-Defends the general will of the people
-The people should be ruled by the people (republicanism)
Max Weber
-Wrote “Politics as a Vocation” in 1921
-Talks about why people obey the state (Weber’s typology of authority)
-3 types of authority
1. Traditional authority (Monarchs, inherited rights)
2. Rational-legal authority (modern democracy)
3. Charismatic Authority (Napoleon, nelson Mandela)
John Stuart Mill
- Wrote “On Liberty” in 1859
- Utilitarian thinker
- Talks about the different kinds of liberties such as the liberty of thought, action, and association.
- power should only be exercised against someone’s will is if it prevents harm to others.
- Tyranny of majority is an issue
Adam Smith
-Wrote “Wealth of Nations” in 1776
-Classic/Economic liberal take
-Belief in free market and economic individual rights.
Isaiah Berlin
-Wrote “Two Concepts on Liberty” in 1969
-Talks about the two types of liberty, Positive and negative liberty.
- Positive liberty is the capacity to master one’s own destiny and is associated with welfare liberalism. Social and economic rights
- Negative liberty is freedom from external constraint and is associated with classical liberalism. Civil and political rights.
Edmund Burke
- Wrote “Reflections on the Revolution in France” in 1790
-Believed that the French ruling system should have been reformed, not overthrown
-Classical Conservatism;
- Anti-revolution/republican/romantic
- Preservation of traditions
- Pessimistic view of human nature
- Inequality and Hierarchy
Eduard Bernstein
- Wrote “Evolutionary Socialism” in 1899
- Talks about how socialism can exist in democratic institutions in a capitalist system. (Social Democratic)
Jeremy Bentham
Did not believe in natural rights but believed in rights are positive rights given in the law.
“Nonsense upon stilts”
T.H. Marshall
Wrote “Citizenship and Social Class” in 1963
- Civil Rights (18th Century), Political Rights (19th Century), Social Rights (20th Century)
Joseph Schumpeter
Wrote “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy” in 1942
- Believed in the Elitist theory of democracy
theory. Prominent in the post-1945 period - arguing that the classical democracy model of citizen participation and involvement in political decision-making = unrealistic
& undesirable.
John Rawls
Wrote “Theory of Justice” in 1971
- The main discussion is about a hypothetical situation in which each person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberties, and that social and economic equalities are to be arranged to
that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged & attached to offices and positions open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity
Alex de Tocqueville
Wrote “Democracy in America” in 1835
- Saw Democracy as a nation of joiners
- Democracy is dependent on a nation of active and engaged civil society.
Almond and Verba
Wrote “The Civic Culture” in 1963
- Thesis: political cultures vary from unaware, to passive, to active. Concludes that the US is the best
example of an active civic culture.
Robert Putnam
Wrote “Bowling Alone” in 2000
-Attributes the decline in civic participation from the 1970s to the 21st C to dual-career families, TV, and change.
-Asserts that American democracy requires engaged citizens and that the collapse of civil society is bad for democracy.
Barbara Arneil
Wrote “Diverse Communities” in 2006
-Takes up Putnam’s theory from Bowling Alone, critiquing it for only looking at traditional means of civic
society. Posits that civil society is changing not declining.
Hans Morgenthau
Wrote “Politics among Nations” in 1948
- Book that became the standard reference for the realist school of thought. In it, Morgenthau takes a state-centred , ‘power politics’ approach to IR, disputing the pursuit of moral aspirations and instead positing that all actions taken by a state are in pursuit of wielding, maintaining, or increasing their power.
Woodrow Wilson
US president during beginning of WW1. Lead the creation of the League of Nations and was a proponent of liberal/idealist IR,
seeing democracies as inherently peaceful.
Antonio Gramsci
Italian scholar of critical theory who wrote his text while imprisoned under Mussolini’s regime. Put forward the concept of hegemony, arguing that ruling classes maintain their power by naturalizing the inequalities that prop them up – creating a “consensual nature of the masses’ support
for hegemony.”
Keynes vs. Hayek
Keynes associated with massive government intervention, while Hayek believed in the government doing nothing. (Banking system)
Frederich Nietzsche
Claims that God is dead meaning;
● Religious God is dead
● Moral absolutes are dead
● The physical absolutes of science are dead
● The ultimate act of human power is will to power
● Challenge to scientific/philosophical method and language
Simone de Beauvoir
Wrote “The second sex” in 1949. Its about the transition from the first wave of feminism to the second.
-“One is not born but rather becomes a women.”
- concept of gender, concept of otherness.(women defined as objects)
- The “independent woman”
Betty Friedan
Wrote “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963
-“The problem that has no name”
- Women were unhappy with this feminine role
-Could not articulate this frustration and thought they were alone
- rise in alcoholism and drug use due to this
- Talks about how the woman role is limited to the home.
- Magazines sold this concept of “feminine mystique”
Will Kymlicka
Wrote “Multi-Cultural Citizenship” in 1995
- Problem: How to reconcile individual human rights with group rights
2. Different kinds of Ethnic Minorities
National Minorities - Que./ First Nations
Polyethnic minorities - immigrants
3. Different Kinds of Group Rights
a) Self Gov’t rights
b) Polyethnic Rights
c) Special Representation Rights
4. Internal Restrictions vs. External Protections
5. Solution: Individual and Group Rights
Edward Said
Wrote “Orientalism” in 1978
- Focus is on Arab “Orient”
-History is a struggle for meaning
-The ‘Orient’ is a constructed identity
‘Orient’ is constructed as exotic, irrational,turbulent ‘uncivilized’: The West is rational ordered ‘civilized’ and must
protect itself from turbulent east
-All texts are political
-The non-west’s response to ‘orientalism’
The colonized now have a voice and are responding: ‘the wretched of the earth are talking back’.
Creation of Post-colonial studies
Growth of fundamentalism and extremism: counter drive to domination and control
