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The Politics of Difference

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  • Course
  • Diversity, Equality And Justice (73220025FY)
  • Institution
  • Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)

The Politics of Difference lecture notes and commentary. I included some extra notes in bold that the lecturer highlighted and was deemed as important. For example, on page 11 I overviews Habermas, Taylor and Mahmood's views on whether people of faith can participate fully in the public sphere. Thi...

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Document information

  • September 19, 2022
  • 54
  • 2021/2022
  • Class notes
  • Darshan vigneswaran
  • All classes

Subjects

  • confirmation bias
  • fukuyama
  • social media
  • liberalism
  • conservative
  • politics
  • political science
  • university of amsterdam
  • mahmood
  • taylor
  • bennet amp livingston
  • universiteit van amsterdam
  • huntingtons cla

Written for

  • Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
  • Politicologie
  • Diversity, Equality And Justice (73220025FY)
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Diversity, equality & justice

Bennett & Livingston (2020)

They argue that a crisis of legitimacy of authoritative institutions lies at the heart of our
current disinformation disorder. The ‘reasoned debate’ between the competing viewpoints
which is characterizes a well-functioning public sphere, have given way to distortion, which
has disrupted the basic functioning of democratic public spheres.

Opponents come up with alternative facts and truths that distort perceptions of problems and
solutions.

Some people are more prone to misinformation and conservative politicians are more likely to
spread misinformation.

Nyhan & Reifler: a perverse “backfire effect” occurs when efforts to correct factually
unsound beliefs leads to a deepening of convictions.  evidence not found by Porter &
Wood.  in the end evidence is found, though people do stick with their deeper political
convictions, irrespective of whether any given bit of information is factually sound.

There used to be institutions in place that would cancel out people believing in conspiracy
theories and would reject radicals (60s). However, now these institutions that defined a
cohesive public sphere have fractured. In this ‘hole’ misinformation has filled up and has
‘spun’ out of control.

Edelman: “the banality, of mainstream political discourses”

Broad changes in global and national economies in the last half-century, and in addition
business pressures to shield economic choices from voters  center-left and center-right has
lost its traditional voters.

Information credibility depends in democracies on authoritative sources offering mix of value
positions that are supported with varying degrees of evidence and reason about why those
positions make sense and how they could actually happen.

,Lecture 1: Introduction
The politics of difference = how power and political institutions categorize people into groups
and how this generates inequality

The Politics of Difference 1: Which difference are political?

- What counts as normal and the norm is really important in this course

The Politics of Difference 2:

- How should Political Scientists study difference?
o Public sphere is a sphere not for difference but for sharing and reconciling our
differences and our distinctions should not be made in the public sphere (by the
state). This is what would be called discrimination etc.
o Private sphere is the sphere where differences can set out
- Critique: How can you distinguish? The state does interfere with some cases…
- People not fitting the norm have to adapt themselves in the public sphere



The Politics of Difference 3: Why not diversity, equality or justice?

Not all differences are political, so we’re interested in how and why some differences become
and remain political

Defining what is ‘normal’ and what is ‘different’ is political

Political scientists study differences between interests AND identities

Political theorists have often seen differences as best protected by re




Lecture 2
Science as Post-hoc rationalization or search for truth?

Fukuyama: democracy is the end of history and there is no more improvement politically.
This argument was utilized by Bush for justifying war with Iraq. Because they had massive
destruction weapons that endanger international security. New justification for Iraq:
democratization in Iraq. Ideas have grounding in theory.

,Fukuyama = about Bush, not the idea he envisioned. The type of political intervention that my
book justified.

We study politics because we know that ideas are rooted in theories that go beyond our own
perceptions



The g is:

- A communicative ‘realm’
- Where participants leave their status and identities behind;
- To discuss and debate the common interest and government;
- And the ‘force of the better argument wins’ (coercion is absent)



Parliament is just one of the places where the realm of public takes place. The public takes
place also in public spaces such as the street or the ‘Malieveld’, so not necessarily an
organized sphere such as the parliament, where ideas on politics or elections are discussed.

Not necessarily in physical locations or parliamentary institutions: realm of communications.

 Leaving your identities behind
o Card game: 10 euro’s each and 1 person gets all the money… is that fair?
 Discussing the Common Interest and Government
 De Force of the better Argument Wins



All theory is for someone and some purpose: critical theories

Critical theories: all arguments are grounded in bias

- Ways of asking questions about organized violence
o How can we create world peace?  United Nations, Status quo powers
o How can you deter a potential aggressor?  Military industry
o How can we reduce the number of battle deaths in war?  Soldiers and
potential recruits
o How can we reduce the number of civilian deaths in war?  Civilians in
conflict environments

, o How can we reduce conflict related violence?  Women and children in
conflict environments

Positionality when choosing sources for your research: method gender, race/ethnicity,
nationality/class, language




Greater objectivity (there is one scientific path to truth)  Science can aim to produce
contingent truths ---- Research can explore how truth justifies inequalities but not law-like
truths  Greater contingency (all knowledge is relative)



Bennett & Livingston
Discussion the phenomenon of disinformation  the scale and repeated use of
misinformation. And this henceforth reducing trust in faith in institutions that decide what is
true.

Mistruth: strategy in authoritarian regimes

- Hashtags that have been banned
- Cutting off true information



Bennett & Livingston: If we think of the Public Sphere as a realm of communication
where the force of the better argument wins, if some arguments are more likely to be
seen due to the censoring out of true information e.g. in authoritarian regimes then this
playing field is unfair since it dilutes our perception of true information.

Confirmation bias = we often seek out information that confirms our initial thoughts or
identity

Social media is responsible for disinformation: they are trying to expose the limitation of this
argument.

Bennett & Livingston: Why the erosion of political institutions is more important

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