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IPOL: Summary readings and lectures
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Nicely laid out document containing information of the lectures and readings needed to pass IPOL and provide general overview for the midterm
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Topic: Chapter 1: Politics and Power (Van Praag)Summarize key ideas/ main Notes
points (Tips: Skip a space between ideas/topics and use abbreviations)
1.2 What is politics? ● Although many people understand what is meant by politics, the term itself
is very difficult to define
○ However, the three elements that are often mentioned are:
○ 1. Decision-making
○ 2. Power
○ 3. Conflict
■ Decisions made within the state are binding and even if you
Decision Making disagree you must obey them
● Approaches that define politics to the domain of
governments or the state are referred to as ‘domain
approaches’
Objections raised against domain ● One objection that is raised against domain approaches is the fact that it is
approaches sometimes not sure if it is the government's responsibility to deal with a
certain issue (e.g. domestic violence, public housing, public transport)
● A second objection that is raised is the fact that domain approaches are too
restrictive because binding decisions are often made outside of the
government sphere
Aspect approaches: approaches that define politics on the basis of certain aspects
of human behavior (such as the process of taking binding decision) irrespective of
the domain in which these activities occur are known as aspect approaches
Conflict ● The larger a society is, the more different viewpoints a society is and thus
the more common it is for conflicts to arise
● People who are on the same side of an issue may choose to cooperate
○ An approach to politics: ‘any mixture of conflict and cooperation is
politics.’
Power ● Actors who are often able to influence decision-making are viewed as
being powerful
○ However, by including power, conflict/cooperation and decision-
making into the definition of politics, the definition becomes very
broad and not all situations that merit the description should be
considered to be political issues
,Topic: IPOL Lecture 2
Summarize key ideas/ main Notes
points (Tips: Skip a space between ideas/topics and use abbreviations)
Political Scientists interest in 1. Frame questions
questions compels them to do four 2. Define concepts
things 3. Specify their theoretical arguments
4. Empirically illustrate and test their arguments
Categories of empirical illustration 1. Anecdotes (a story or illustration of a phenomenon with no clear
and evidence connection to the general question)
2. Case studies (a selected example of an instance or potential instance of a
phenomenon with identified power to speak to a general set of cases)
3. Descriptive quantitative research (the enumeration of the characteristics
of a population)
4. Inferential quantitative research (the use of statistical procedures to reach
conclusions about associations between variables)
Political science reasoning 1. Knowledge begins with asking questions about the world around us
2. The study of politics involves asking questions about conflict, cooperation,
coercion and distribution
3. Political science seeks general answers to these questions
4. Our interest in generalizing leads us to frame questions, define concepts an
specify, illustrate and test arguments
The race to the bottom ● The race to the bottom is a socio-economic phrase which is used to
describe government deregulation of the business environment, or reduction
in tax rates, in order to attract or attain economic activity in their
jurisdictions.
, Tutorial
Topic: Mair 2008
Summarize key ideas/ main Notes
points (Tips: Skip a space between ideas/topics and use abbreviations)
Concepts and Concept Formation ● Most political science research is comparative research, which means tha
(pp. 177-182) the findings of the research can be compared against other countries and/o
case studies
○ Nevertheless, when comparing two concepts it is important t
determine how related the two concepts are. It is not good t
compare chalk with cheese, because this comparison leads t
meaningless conclusions.
● Satori assigned a degree of abstraction and generality to concepts (low
medium and high)
○ The more abstract a concept is the more cases it fits
○ The more concrete a concept is the less cases it fits
Satori’s rules on how to conduct research:
1. Before starting the research, it is always important to specify and identit
the concepts
2. First the ‘what is’ question will be answered and later on the ‘how much
question
3. ‘More and less’ comes after ‘either - or’
● Research and comparisons can be difficult to make when scholars hav
different understandings of a certain concept (e.g. ‘Europeanisation’ doe
not mean the same thing to everyone.)
○ At times it is easier to say what a concept is not than what is is
■ This is known as ‘negative identification’ in which a concep
is defined by negation
■ It can also be useful to understand what the concept ‘is a
instance of’
The Ladder of Abstraction (pp. ● The ‘Ladder of Abstraction’ is also referred to as the ‘Ladder of Generality
186-192) ○ At the top of the ladder we have the most abstract concepts whic
only have one or two characteristics
○ At the bottom of the ladder we have the concepts with a large
number of characteristics
■ E.g. ‘Regime’ is more abstract than ‘democracy’ or ‘non
democracy’
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