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Poli 100 Study Notes- UBC- 2022/2023
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Thorough, detailed notes of the Poli 100 textbook assigned from Mr. Serbulent Turan at UBC, first-year.
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POLI 100: TEXTBOOK NOTES:INTRO:
- How narrow or wide should the boundaries of politics be?
- Politics is often associated with corruption, intrigue, conflict
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Stuart Mill regard it as a very noble activity
- Politics can be defined as the process by which groups representing divergent interests and
values make collective decisions
- 2 assumptions: first, all societies of any complexity must contain diversity (different interests
and values) so it needs a mechanism through which these differences are reconciled. Second,
scarcity is an inevitable characteristic of societies- need a mechanism whereby these goods can
be distributed.
- Politics: Who gets what, when, how?
- How are economic goods distributed?
- What about granted honour?
- Is also a study of values
- Central divide between those preferring liberty over equality and equality over liberty
- Important theme of book: the conflict between liberty and security
- Marxists believe that politics is not inevitable- in a classless society, where there is greater
cohesion on the agreement of core values and cooperation, politics is not needed.
- Marx believes politics is about class conflict, and is seen negatively. But is a naive mentality as
it does not take human nature’s tendency towards difference, striving, and competition, into
consideration.
- Some countries do not follow the West’s liberal democratic model, such as East Asian
countries, Eastern Europe, Africa, China, etc. they may have a greater focus on economics,
post-communism, religion, authoritarian, etc. and not favour democratic values and liberty.
- Gamble- sees politics as an operation that has left no space for change, personally or socially,
in the world.
- Politics: who gets what, when, how (and how much)?
- Need to make distinction between power and authority- power is forceful, coercive (is
time-consuming and difficult), whereas authority is legitimate, and because it is legit, force is not
needed, and can be accepted as those ruled recognise the right of the rulers to exercise power.
We should convert power to authority.
- Where does politics begin and end?
- The state- highest form of authority in politics- such authority is tantamount to sovereignty, as
the state is the supreme law-making body within a specific territory- has power of life and death
over people
- The state can be distinguished from the gov in the sense that it is a much larger entity,
containing not just political offices but also bureaucratic institutions, the judiciary, military, and
police and security services.
,- Can also be differentiated from civil society as it can also place beings into which non-gov
institutions they belong to (business orgs, trade unions, etc.). These institutions provide linkage
between the individual and the state
- Political theory linked to political obligation
- Globalisation restricting what “sovereign” states can do on their own
- Politics is in all social activity, formal and informal, private and public and in all human groups,
institutions, and societies and makes choices that affect society such as the workings of the
market.
- Political aspect- distribution, exercise, and consequences of power
- In contrast to tyranny and oligarchy political rule hopes to incorporate competing groups in
society and should be widely spread for conciliation (Crick).
- It should not always be used to promote violence and suppression
- Plato and Aristotle founded politics
- The teaching of politics has traditionally distinguished between the study of political ideas
(sometimes also referred to as theory or philosophy), the study of political institutions and
processes within states, and the relations between states.
- First, students of politics engage in normative analysis. This type of political analysis asks
questions of a valuational kind, and seeks to identify what is good or better with a view to
recommending what we ought to want.
- Among the three forms of analysis identified above, normative analysis was the poor relation.
In academia, there was focus on empirical political science and also on *analytical' political
philosophy, in which the meaning of concepts and the relation between them was considered.
This was the behavioural' revolution in which number crunching, particularly in relation to the
study of electoral behaviour, was the gold standard. Thus, pontificating on what kind of society
and polity we ought to have (normative analysis) was regarded as unnecessary.
- Semantic analysis
- In the west, 1950s-60s, consensus politics was accompanied by economic prosperity
- The decline of normative analysis—> positivism
- Logical positivism
- Normative political philosophy came back in 1960-70s due to decline in consensus politics
which lead to many economic problems and because of new and innovative works of political
philosophy.
THE STATE
- Weber described it as “an institution that is a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force
in enforcing its order within a given territorial area”.
- Is linked with sovereignty
- De jure sov- a legal right to rule supremely
- De facto sov- actual distribution of political power
- There are: night watchman states, developmental states, and social democratic states.
Developmental part is very important for the social democratic part to flourish in a state.
- There are: liberal democracies, illiberal democracies, and authoritarian regimes (differ between
fair and free elections, communication, protecting rights of the people, totalitarianism, etc.)
,THE STATE AND POWER
- Pluralism: Elite pluralism, Corporatism/societal or neo-corporatism
- Elitism
- Marxism
- New right theory of the state
- Empirical critiques of the above states
- Normative critiques of the above states
- Liberal social contract tradition
- Utilitarianism
- Liberalism and communitarianism
- Problems with society: access to resources, hierarchy, resolve conflict
DOMINANT IDEOLOGIES CHALLENGED
- Ideologies of liberalism remained unchallenged, as the main battle was between liberalism and
socialism.
- Modernism/enlightenment- rational, total understanding of social and political world, believes in
reason
- Postmodernism- irrational, celebrated differences and having no fixed points or universalism
(you cannot master the nature of reality as it is too diverse or fractured)
- End of fordist era- postmodernism celebrated differences in the economy, production, and
employment patterns.
- Postmodernism critiqued for being too oppositional, rejects the effort to put up a rational (or
modernistic) case in to building democracy or justice, so is seen as overly destructive and does
not guide us on how we can correct the faults postmodernism sees in society.
- PM should be thought of a critique of specific ideologies rather than being an ideology itself,
then
FEMINISM
- Liberal feminism- cares more abt the public sphere- equality in jobs, politics, salary, economy,
law, etc.
- Radical feminism- cares abt the root of the oppression of women coming from all aspects of
society: family life, marriage, a patriarchal society, traditions, etc. says the oppression of women
is more universal than just the public sphere and denies the divide between public and private
problems. But is criticised for politicising every aspect of life and being totalitarian, and creates
false image of women being helpless victims act every level of society, also ignore the
oppression of women based on race and class as it bases its ideologies off of the problems that
white, usually middle-class women face.
- Marxist feminists- women play a role in the house that allows men to work efficiently and aid
the economy and capitalism
- Socialist feminists- argues for better working conditions for women and for domestic lives to
stop having an economic function, unlike Marxism
- Lots of fragmentation within feminism itself- postmodernism supports these differences, even
though feminists try to subject the subordination of women to a universal reason.
, - Difference feminists- believe that women are different than men for a reason and if men are
violent, aggressive, egotistical, greedy, etc. women are the opposite and should feminize society
rather than mimic men
THE STATE AND GENERAL WILL
- Rousseau believed that the state and morality are inevitably linked, thus, the state should be
judged based on how much it upholds the general will, which unites people together.
- He think that the general will can only emerge in small-scale communities.
- Hegel on the other hand saw the state as the literal general will and that this will would
supersede the interests of civil society and families.
- Marx followed Hegel until he realised the truth about society and how exploitative it rlly is, and
decided we must not interpret but change society.
- Anarchists question the need for a state- they believe the state corrupts and undermines a
human’s morality. They want equality and freedom.
- The state is now under attack by scholars challenging its utility and very existence, empirically
and normatively.
- Globalisation thesis- the state is hollowing it, no longer does what its supposed to. World has
become very economically and politically interdependent that little room for nation-states to
change.
- From an empirical POV, Globalisation challenges a state system of individual autonomous and
competing sovereign states, as well as nation-states.
- For one, globalisation is driven by the internationalisation of the economy, with multinational
corporation and world trade, economic policies are determined elsewhere and with greater
economic interdependence and improved technology and global environmental problems,
supranational institutions further challenge the power of states.
- Others argue that the globalisation theory exaggerates the autonomy of sovereign states that
they had to begin with.
- From normative POV, its argued that the liberation of world markets is a good development,
creating greater prosperity. Additionally, global problems, like environmental ones, require global
solutions beyond the power of sovereign states.
- Finally, argues that globalisation facilitates cosmopolitanism- goal of achieving peace,
toleration, and justice- our allegiance to humanity rather than a partial entity like the state.
- Others don’t see the nation-state as an obstacle to cosmopolitanism, and think that a system
of markets uninterfered by the state will lead to inequality and exploitation.
- Sub-state institutions, governance, and supranational institutions also challenge the state.
POWER, AUTHORITY, AND THE STATE
- Politics- competing interests and values and which ones make it to the top
- Power and authority can be distinguished by coercion and consent
- Instead of coercion, rule by ideological control (manipulating the thoughts of the ruled to reflect
the thoughts and interests of the rulers) is much more effective than coercion and force. But
depends on whether individual preferences can be manipulated in such a way.
- Authority- what ought to be- a normative concept
- Power- what is- empirical concept
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