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Samenvatting in de vorm van vooral zinnen (behalve H1). Beknopte informatie, maar alles wat je hoort te kennen zit erin!
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Summary chapter 1-7 of Societal Problems as Public Bads (course: Sociale Problemen)
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Aantekeningen/samenvattingSociale problemen
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
Societal problems as public bads
Societal problem: substantial group of citizens perceive a certain state of affairs as problematic
Social problem: problem occurring in relations or interactions between people.
There can be made a distinction between societal problems and social problems. social problems only become
societal problems if they are shared by a large group of people and leave their mark on society as a whole.
Public bads public goods
Externalities: effects of individual behavior on others.
A brief history of the problematic society
Recent
Philosophers introduced terms like society
Trias politica optimistic (philosophers)
French revolution
Social science and government policy relation
o State has become more involved in the organization of society
When does a problem become a societal problem?
Opinions and debate about problems and severity
Steps:
1. Problems originate from an aggregation of individual level behavior
2. The society-level situation arising be recognized as a societal problem
3. The issue should be put on the public agenda
4. An assessment is made whether government action is needed and feasible.
Free rider problems
Interventionist states
Cost-benefit analysis of government action
Short-termism and political business cycle
Social norms and the organization of society
Social norms are a form of social capital, and they act as a lubricant for social interactions.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The philosophical underpinnings of social norms
Categorical imperative Golden rule.
Rawls and Nozick talk about how a society should be organized, and what principles collective institutions
should be founded. They are somewhat in a consensus, but not about the implementation.
Rawls: state should blay a major role
o Principles: principle of equal liberty, difference principle, opportunity principle, maximin princi -
ple.
o State assumes a number of functions over and above guaranteeing citizens’ fundamental
rights
Nozick: principles to maximize the liberty of the individual to live by his own values and pursue his own
goals.
, o Negative liberties non-aggression principle
o No positive liberties
o Night-watchman state
Socialists, liberals, and conservatives
Ideologies
Progressivism, libertarianism
Rationalism and universalism
The state versus the other spheres of so-
ciety
The market sphere
The civic sphere
The private sphere
Media takes a special place in the figure.
Social media complicates the position of
the media, enabling individuals to reach
wide audiences while bypassing tradi-
tional media outlets. The private sphere
consumes and produces media.
A typology of goods
There are four main types of goods:
private goods,
club goods,
common pool resources,
public goods.
The excludability of a good: the extent to which it is possible to prevent people from consuming that good.
The rivalry of a good: the extent to which any one person’s consumption of that good reduces other people’s
opportunities to consume it.
Rival Non-rival
Excludable Private goods (e.g., food, Club goods (e.g., cinemas,
clothes, electronics) satellite television, gyms)
Non-excludable Common-pool resources (e.g., Public goods (e.g., infrastruc -
timber, coal, rare minerals) ture, scientific discoveries)
Public goods are both physical objects and certain types of information, such as scientific discoveries. Nearly all
private and club goods – that is, all goods that are excludable – are supplied by the market, except in commu -
nist or socialist countries. Several reasons:
1. the price system of the market tends to allocate resources efficiently by ensuring that the supply of
each good is equal to the demand for it, thereby preventing large surpluses or shortages.
2. Competition between firms within the market tends to drive down prices and improve the quality of
goods over time, as consumers are generally sensitive to changes in prices and quality.
3. The decentralized nature of the market means that errors and deviations from what is optimal tend to
be localized, and that the economic system as a whole can respond adaptively to shocks.
The provision of public goods requires collective action. A collective action is difficult, or nearly impossible, to
achieve without the coercive apparatus of the state. Reason: coordination failures stemming from incomplete in -
formation and communication limitations. And: each individual has an incentive not to participate in the collec -
tive action free riding.
Common-pool resources are managed by the state, local communities, small-scale cooperatives, private compa -
nies, or individual actors.
There is a difference between public goods and goods provided (by the state) publicly.
, Social capital as a public good
Social capital: features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordina -
tion and cooperation for mutual benefit.
Positive effects of social capital: if people establish norms of cooperation in organizations and social networks,
they will be more likely to succeed in improving safety in their neighborhoods, protecting the environment, pre -
venting poverty, and achieving other desirable ends.
Negative effects of social capital: within close-knit networks of social relations, individuals may have strongly in -
ward-looking attitudes and approach non-members in an exclusive, or even hostile, way.
CHAPTER 2. ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
Social scientific explanations
Social scientific analysis aims to shed light on societal realities with two parts: descriptions and explanations.
Descriptions: comprise statements of a qualitative or quantitative nature that characterize the phenomenon in
terms of such things as its distribution without the population and its trend over time, among other factors.
Explanations: go beyond simply describing a phenomenon but aim to reveal the underlying determinants and
causal forces.
Boudon, Coleman and Elster view any type of society-level phenomenon as being rooted in individual-level be -
haviors and interactions. (Explanatory approach). This behavior should be understood in the macro-level con -
texts in which the micro-level actors are embedded. This concluded in an actor-in-context approach or, more
specifically, a macro-micro-macro model.
The macro-micro-macro model
The macro-micro-macro model is also referred to as Cole-
man’s boat or Coleman’s tub. It links conditions and out-
comes at the macro and micro level through several steps:
1. Macro-level conditions influence the micro-level
conditions in which individual actors operate,
shaping, among other things, their opportunity
structure
2. Given these micro-level conditions, as well as
their preferences and objectives, individual actors will
behave in certain ways, resulting in certain micro-
level outcomes.
3. The aggregation of all these micro-level outcomes subsequently gives rise to certain macro-level out -
comes. In some cases, this aggregation process may concern a simple summation of micro-level be -
haviors, yet it often involves complex interactions that may lead to unexpected macro-level outcomes.
4. Through the preceding steps, we can connect macro-level conditions to macro-level outcomes via the
underlying micro-level processes. As such, the preceding steps jointly provide explanations for relation -
ships that we observe between conditions and outcomes at the macro-level.
An undesirable macro-level phenomenon – namely, regular shortages and surpluses, which ultimately harm both
suppliers and consumers – can be explained by micro-level decisions that are themselves perfectly sensible
given the situation.
Understanding individual actors
Methodological individualism : putting micro-level behaviors at the heart of the explanatory process.
Only individuals can be considered as beings with a will and a capacity to act purposefully, aggregations of indi -
viduals do not possess this. Researchers often need to interpret the actions of individuals in order to understand
their motives and goals. The researcher can observe (A) actions and interactions (actual behavior), or (B) indi -
viduals’ verbal statements about these actions. One problem, however, is that actual behavior and people’s ex -
planations for their behavior are often inconsistent. Researchers are skeptical of the usefulness of interviews
and prefer to look at actors’ behaviors as their revealed preferences.
In contrast, social scientists can go some way toward identifying the motives of actors. It is also not necessary
to be aware of the exact motives and intentions of all actors in every situation. As soon as the motives and in -
tentions of actors are available, the researcher can imagine themselves in the position of individual actors –
step into their shoes.
Thomas Schelling did this by speaking about the method of vicarious problem-solving in the following steps:
1. Put yourself in the position of the actor
2. Assume that they have certain preferences and objectives
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