Questions to Consider Flashcards
What is politics?
A collective activity occurring between people
Involves making decisions on matters affecting two or more people typically for course of action or resolve disagreements
Political decisions become authoritative law
According to Steven Lukes, what are the Three Dimensions of Power?
decision-making power, non-decision-making power, and ideological power
Define ideology and what are the different ideologies often identified in comparative politics?
a system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, a blueprint for how politics and economics and society should be structured
Anarchism
Marxism
Liberalism
Conservatism
Fascism
What is the institutionalist approach and what are the theorized benefits of institutions?
an approach to the study of politics and govs; focus on structures and dynamics of governing institutions. resilience and permanence, provide frameworks for decision-making, offer predictability
What is the behavioralist approach and what are the benefits of focusing on individuals as the unit of
analysis?
emphasizes people over institutions, studying the attitudes and behavior of individuals in search of scientific generalization. accurate exploration of heterogeneity, validation in multiagent simulations, effective resource allocation, and appropriate statistical modeling
What is the rational choice approach, what are the assumptions of rational choice and how does it
expect actors to make decisions
Rational choice is based on the idea that political behavior reflects the choices made by individuals working to maximize their benefits and minimize their costs
People are “rational in the sense that , given goals and alternative strategies to choose from; they will select the one that maximizes their chance of achieving goals
Identify goals of the actors and how their objectives can be achieved in a given situation, enabling the ability to predict through modeling expected behavior
Individuals as well as larger units are analyzed
What is the structural approach and what are its different theoretical variants?
emphasizes the relationships among groups and networks within larger systems. Interests and positions of these groups shape the overall configurations of power and provide the dynamic of political change
Groups as unit of analysis
Marxist/Neo-Marxist Theory
Critical Feminism
Dependency Theory
Securitization Studies
What are the different forms of case studies?
- Representative: typical of the category
- Prototypical: expected to become typical
- Exemplary: created the category
- Deviant: exception to the rule
- Critical: if it works here, it’ll work anywhere
What are the challenges of comparison such as with selection bias and globalization?
When selected cases and variables are
unrepresentative of the wider class from which they
are drawn
* Large-n quantitative designs reduce the likelihood
of selection bias; however, the type of data and
variables used could additionally suffer from the
bias
States cannot be regarded as entirely independent of each
other, reduces the effective number of cases for testing
theories
* Interdependence means that treating states as
independent artificially inflates the effective sample size,
exaggerates confidence in the significance of the results
What is a state? What qualities does an entity need to be considered a state?
The legal and political authority of a territory containing a
population and marked by borders
* The state defines the political authority of which
government is the managing authority
* That authority is regarded as both sovereign and
legitimate by the citizens of the state and the governments
of other states
What is the contractarian view of state formation?
state becomes a third-party enforcer that punishes individuals
that engage in socially destructive behavior violating the social
contract
What is the predatory view of state formation?
Tilly argues that modern state arose as a by-product of leaders’ attempts to
survive
According to Charles Tilly, what are the primary activities that have resulted in state formation?
- War making: Eliminating or neutralizing their own rivals outside the
territories which they had clear and continuous priority as wielders of
force - State making: Eliminating or neutralizing their rivals inside those
territories - Protection: Eliminating or neutralizing the enemies of their clients
- Extraction: Acquiring the means of carrying out the first three activities
What are criticisms that can be levied against the state?
Imposing unnecessary divisions on human society
Having a history of going to war
Limiting the free movement of people and capital
Imposing limits on trade that handicap innovation and efficiency
Pursuing state interests and the expense of human interests
Allowing exclusion to dominate over inclusion
Promoting narrow identities at the expense of broader identities
Having a poor record of working to address shared problems
Being often unable to meet the demands of their residents for security, justice, prosperity, and human rights
Failing to manage their economies and national resources to the benefit of their residents
What are the principal challenges facing states today?
Public loyalty to states has been undermined by economic, social, and political divisions
International borders have been weakened by the extension of economic ties among states through globalization
States have signed bilateral and multilateral cooperative treaties and have created a network of intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) responsible for encouraging and monitoring cooperation, resulting in regional integration
Due to international terrorism and other threats, states have reasserted their power over their citizens, giving themselves broadened powers to impinge upon personal privacy and to limit the movement and the choices of those who live and travel with their borders, creating a security state
