POLITICS Flashcards
Theme 1 - defining politics
Heywood’s definition of politics is…
That politics in the broadest sense is the activity through which people make, preserve, and amend rules under which they live.
What does this definition (Heywood) link to?
- conflict and cooperation
- search for conflict resolution rather than the solutions themselves
How does Bismarck define politics as the art of government? (2)
- the exercise of control
- the making and enforcing of collective decisions
what is ‘polis’?
‘city-state’
- what concerns the state
How did Easton define politics? (2)
- authoritative allocation of values.
- various processes that government responds to the pressure from larger society.
What is a ‘polity’? (1)
- social organisation centred on the machinery of government.
What is politics seen as in term of the public-mind? (2)
- closely associated with the activity of politicians.
- (seen as power-seeking hypocrites that conceal their true intentions.)
What is ‘anti-politics’? (2)
- disillusionment with formal and established political processes.
- rejection of conventional political life
How can ‘power’ be defined in a political sense? (1)
- ability to influence the behaviour of others, having power over someone.
How is ‘power’ defined in a broader sense? (2)
- ability to achieve a desired outcome.
- the power to do something.
What is Lord Acton’s aphorism? (1)
- “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
What are the private and public aspects in the traditional distinction that is ‘state vs civil society’? (2)
private - family, private businesses. private because they are funded by the individuals in order to satisfy their own interests.
public - responsible for the collective organisation of community life.
What are the private and public aspects behind the ‘political and the personal’? (2)
public - open institutions, public access.
private - politics should not infringe upon ones personal affairs.
What is meant by politics as ‘compromise and consensus’? (2)
- a particular means of resolving conflict through compromise and negotiation.
- focusing on how decisions are made rather than focussing on how politics is conducted.
What are described as the ‘faces’ of power in politics? (3)
- decision-making
- agenda setting
- as thought control (ideological indoctrination)
What are the 2 main views of politics as power? (2)
- feminism
- marxism
What was the traditional argument that the Marxists had on the capitalist society? (1)
- argued that politics in a capatilist society is characterised by the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie.
Describe the philosophical traditional approach to studying politics. (3)
- a preoccupation with ethical, prescriptive or normative questions.
- what should be and not what is.
- it is not objective.
Describe the emperical traditional approach to studying politics.
- based on observation and experiment.
- derived from sense data and experience.
- offers an impartial account of political reality.
- is ‘descriptive’, it seeks to analyse and explain.
What is the ‘doctrine of empericism’? (1)
- theory that all knowledge is based on experience, and derived through the senses.
What is ‘positivism’? (1)
- theory that all social forms of enquiry should adhere strictly to the methods of the natural science.
Define ‘behaviouralism’. (1)
- the belief that all social theories should only be constructed on the basis of observable behaviour.
What is Rational-Choice Theory?
- explains how people make decisions
- provides insight in the actions of others, i.e voters, lobbyists.
- technically based on the rational self-interested behaviour of individuals.
What are the critiques on rational-choice theory? (2)
- overestimate human rationality
- pays insufficient attention to social and historical factors.
