Summary
Summary Citizens - Peter Thijssen
- Course
- Institution
Professor Thijssen's course about Citizens.
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
willemvanaquitanië
Content preview
1POLITICAL SCIENCE 2020/2021
COURSE: CITIZENS
PROF. THIJSSEN
Part A: The citizen and the political system (macro perspective)
Course 1: Citizen & political regime
From king philosophers to representative democracy, and back
General focus: The role of the citizen in Western political thinking (427 BC – 1920)
Increasing importance of citizens
− For politicians and policy makers - their ‘followers’
Mechanism: party dealignment, increasing volatility, declining
pillarization
− For journalists - their ‘clickbait’s’
Mechanism: market logic, decline of pillarized media, digital revolution
− For interest groups - their ‘mobilization potential’
Mechanism: your own interest is not enough, disowning projection
− For companies - their ‘clients’
Mechanism: market logic, consumer fickleness
− For the other citizens - their ‘social mirror’
Mechanism: increasing need of points of reference in an age of
declining appeal of the old churches
Citizens and the group in historical perspective
− On the shoulders of giants
− Max Weber’s antinomies of the Fall: paradisiacal ethics and the populist
Zeitgeist (between progress and freedom/individuality/difference)
− Historical dialectics/antinomies
Plato – Aristotle
Augustine – Machiavelli
Hobbes – Locke
Locke – Rousseau
Bentham/Mill – Tocqueville/Tarde
Hegel – Marx
1. Plato (427 vC-347 vC)
− ‘Politeia’ = quest for a righteous state
− From macro (state) to micro (citizen)
− Deductive reasoning
− Division of labour-specialisation is desirable
, 2
− 3 stands: labourer’s, soldiers, governors
− Importance of differences in level of education
Education is a broad concept: Music and Gymnastics
Commune, eugenics, gender neutral
− Ideal state: aristocracy/sofocracy
Power to the ‘philosopher king’
− Process of degeneration: 4 bad forms of state
Timocracy: ‘power to ambition’
Oligarchy: ‘power to wealth’
Democracy: ‘power to desire’
Tirany: ‘power to the absolute ruler’
− Public opinion= ‘deception’ (allegory of the cave)
− Knowledge versus Opinion (Doxa …cf. orthodox)
Idea versus fickle reproductions of the real
➢ Augustine (354-430) “the city of God” (indebted to Plato)
− Importance of common abstract legal principles
− Self-renunciation as an ideal
− The earthly city as educational context for the city of God
2. Aristotle (384 vC -322 vC)
− ‘Politica’ =quest for the state (political regime) that empirically proves
to be the best
− Inductive empirical reasoning
− Importance of the polis
− Polis: the community of free citizens
Man is a political and a social animal
Each citizen should occasionally assume public office
− Participatory form of citizenship
− Individual opinions are mediated by institutions
− Different forms of state that are ‘good’, which can nevertheless
degenerate
Monarchy – but danger of tyranny
Aristocracy – but danger of oligarchy
Politeia – but danger of democracy
− Disclaimer: democracy of Athens
Women, slaves, labourers, and traders are no free citizens
Democrat vision is more radical – lottery principle for jurors
➢ Thomas Van Aquinas (1225-1274) (indebted to Aristotle)
− True humanity only can be realized in the polis
3. Machiavelli (1469-1527)
− ‘Il Principe’, how can a ruler hold on to his/her power?
− Importance of secrecy (official secrets) openness, public(ity)
− Empirical (inductive) and anthropocentric vision
− Man is by nature striving for power
− Autocracy: power makes lonely
− Effectiveness should always be the primal goal
, 3
− But … legitimacy can never be completely neglected
The wellbeing and friendship of the people
Importance of taking care of public opinion (public reputation)
4. Hobbes (1588-1679)
− ‘Leviathan’: what is a viable political order?
− Deductive model, but … concrete motivation: religious war (Hobbes
the chicken?)
− By nature, each human is striving for power and self-maintenance
− State of nature: “life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”
− Solution: A social contract
Externalizing problems: Sovereign with absolute power
‘embodying’ the people
‘conscience’ is a private matter: from opinion 1 to opinion 2
− Citizens are only important in establishing the social contract and in a
marginal testing of security policies (‘watchman state’)
− Body politic: bounded by the contours of the royal body
− Pluralis Majestatis: “He, Akbar (1542-1605), had never referred to
himself as ‘I’, not even in private, not even in anger or dreams. He was-
-what else could he be? – ‘we’.”
5. Locke (1632-1704)
− ‘Two treatises of government’
− By nature, each human is striving for power and self-maintenance
− State of nature: rather idyllic
− When times moves on property relations will become more unequal,
which is a fair thing according to Locke
− Solution: A social contract
Everyone resigns from his own individual power-sovereignty of
the people
‘Law of opinion and reputation’ – folkways - positive opinion²
Checks and balances – majority rule – right to revolt
Importance of general and abstract laws – rule of law
6. Rousseau (1712-1778)
− Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes
(1755)
Genealogy of inequality to show it is not natural
− Du contrat social; ou, Principes du droit politique (1762)
“man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”
− Point of departure: solitary man of nature
− Inequality originates in society
− Lockean social contract = pseudo-contract
− Genuine social contract relies on ‘la volonté générale’
− L’opinion publique =in the sense of not-publicly felt opinion is the only
sovereign authority
− rational critical public opinion
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller willemvanaquitanië. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $9.00. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
67474 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now