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Introduction to Political Science summary
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This is a summary for the course introduction to political science. Its an extensive summary of the lectures from the first year of the bachelors of Political Science
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INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE (ipol-fmg@uva.nl)- Space in which people engage in public affairs
What is politics? People come together to talk about x event
A particular way of engaging with each other
Hannah Arendt She thought about politics as compromising and realizing human potential, finding a
solution. (Jewish refugee during WWII, talks about her experience with fascism).
Global trading system Politics
Politics A big system
Working conditions, trading commerce, laws, system.
Exercise of power channelled through political institutions.
Politics is everywhere
What isn’t political?
Music and politics?
What are we studying here?
It is also an essentially contested concept, seen variously as
Politics has no defined definition, it’s a contested concept
The art of government and public affairs Politics as an arena
Compromise and consensus and distribution of power Politics as a process
“Positionality” and why it matters:
Your position in society shapes what you see and what you find important (everyone has a different
perspective because everyone is different)
People who dominate decide which problems are important, and which knowledge is necessary to
fix them.
In US political science: more than 65% men, more than 90% white.
The Science of Politics vs Political Science
Tools of political analysis:
The government makes decisions
Develop a theory
Holland has 18 pol. Parties
,Politics in global age:
What is political ideology?
Social-scientific sense: Ideology is a coherent set of ideas which provide a basis for organized political
action
Per. : strands of normative political thought
Liberalism:
Spinoza: “The goal of the state is free”
Key ideas: Individualism, freedom, reason, equality, toleration, consent, constitutionalism
We come from an age where monarchs would pass their power by linage.
CLASSICAL LIBERALISM:
Negative freedoms (“Freedom from interference”)
MODERN LIBERALISM:
Positive freedoms (“Freedom to do something”)
Conservatism:
Konrad Adenauer- “Keine Experimente!”
Key ideas: tradition, pragmatism, human imperfection, organicism, hierarchy, authority, property
The New Right:
Reacting against apparent failure of Keynesian social democracy and concern about “social
breakdown”
The new right (sense that cultural liberation of the 60s brought disorder)
,Socialism:
Karl Marx- “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways. The point, however,
is to change it.” straight call to the social revolution
Tricky issue:
Communism, normative ideal of society where on a small scale, people are equal, no class division
and no personal property (Marx idea)
-Socialism as political system
-Marxism: theory of history
Society as a system of exploitation and oppression (Karl Marx)
Politics as the organized enforcer of this system
Culture and ideas as the legitimator of this system
- Contradictions/tensions in the system lead to change
- The contradiction of capitalism was that people who produce the product do not have the
money to buy them.
- Rich people manage to supress poor people
G20 OSAKA SUMMIT 2019 there are like 3 women in the pic
Feminism:
Schools of thought that put central the Unequal and unfair (power) relations between men and women
- 1st wave: formal political rights LES SUFFRAGETTES (19th century-20th century)
- 2nd wave: gender relations in society (“The personal is political”), hierarchy and gender roles are
discussed, brings personal into the public (1970s)
- 3rd wave: diversity within gendered relations (“intersectionality”); attention to diversity in
gender identities
Post colonialism:
Tradition of political thought that focuses on Political, societal, economic, cultural and psychological
legacies of colonialism
Structural and institutional racism
- Harriet Tubman (1823-1913) and W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Other important strands of thoughts:
- “Green” thought and ecologism
- Religious fundamentalism
- Populism: anti elite system
-
, IPOL 2
STATES AND THEIR CITIZENS
What is the state? What is the nature of the state? 3 approaches
Functional approach: focuses on the role or purpose of state institutions, has the
function of doing and providing certain things, organized answered that is provided to
the society
Organizational approach: defines the state as the ‘public’ apparatus of government
(eg bureaucracy, police, courts, social security system)
International approach: views the state primarily as an actor on the world stage, as
the basic ‘unit’ of international politics, five features
FIVE KEY FEATURES OF THE STATE (FROM INSIDE)
- Sovereignty: ultimate power internally
- ‘Public’ character: in charge of collective (and collectively binding) decision
- Exercise in legitimation: decisions are widely accepted because, so the claim, they are
made in the public interest
- Instrument in domination: backed up by coercive capacity
- Territorial association: the jurisdiction is territorially
DEFINING THE STATE (VIEW FROM OUTSIDE)
- According to Article 1 of the Montevideo Convention, the state has four features:
A defined territory
A permanent population
An effective government
The capacity to enter relations with other states
DEBATING THE STATE
- The pluralist state: the state is a ‘referee’ in society
- HEGEL: Progress of human societies through history
Subjective reason, objective reason, absolute reason
The State: expression of society’s state of development and the “spirit”
(Geist) of history
Dialectics is crucial and yet again political dynamite
Marx claimed to put Hegel back on his feet
DEBATING THE STATE
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