Political science - summary book and lecture notes
Summary Political Science: Lectures and book - UVT
Introduction to comparative politics summary
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Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (EUR)
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Political Science (FSWSBC2012)
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Literatuur blok 2.1
Artikelen
- Relevance and research question (introduction)
- Causal theories (hypotheses + causal mechanisms)
- Operationalisation of variables
- Results and outcomes
Lecture 1
Comparative government and politics h1 p. 1-10
Key concepts
- Government: the arena for making and enforcing collective decisions. Institutions and
offices through which societies are governed. Also used to describe the group of
people who govern, a specific administration, the form of the system of rule, and the
nature and direction of the administration of a community.
- Hobbes: without a government to rule, men are at war amongst each other. A
government (highest level of political appointments) secures peace and order.
- Political system: the broader array of forces surrounding and influencing government.
The interactions and organisations (including but not restricted to government)
through which a society reaches and successfully enforces collective decisions.
Interchangeably used with the term regime, but the latter tends to have negative
connotations.
- Governance: the whole range of actors involved in the government. The process by
which decisions, laws and policies are made, with or without the input of formal
institutions.
Politics
- The process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and
executing shared or collective decisions.
- Collective activity, occurring between and among people.
- Involves making decisions on matters affecting 2 or more people.
- Once reached, political decisions become authoritative policy for the group,
binding and commiting its members.
Power
- The capacity to bring about intended effect. The term is often used as a synonym for
influence, but is also used more narrowly to refer to more forceful modes of influence:
notably, getting one’s way by threats.
- How can we measure power? → Luke’s 3 dimensions
1. First: who prevails when preferences conflict? More wins indicate more
power.
2. Second: who controls whether preferences are expressed? The capacity to
control the agenda.
, 3. Third: who shapes preferences? Addresses the notion of manipulated
consensus.
- Authority: The right to rule. Authority creates its own power, so long as people accept
that the person in authority has the right to make decisions.
- Legitimacy: the state or quality of being legitimate. A legitimate system of government
is one based on authority, and those subject to its rule recognise its right to make
decisions.
- Ideology: a system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for
how politics, economics and society should be structured.
Comparative government and politics h1 p. 12-17
Comparative politics: the systematic study of government and politics in different countries,
designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities.
- Main goal: understand how political institutions and processes operate by examining
their workings.
Why?
- Broadening understanding
- Predicting political outcomes
Classifying political systems
● Aristoteles
Rule by
One Few Many
Form Genuine Kingship Aristocracy Polity
Perverted Tyranny Oligarchy Democracy
Genuine: rulers govern in common interest
Perverted: rules govern in own interest
● Montesquieu
○ Republican system: (some of the) people have supreme power
○ Monarchical system: one person rules on the basis of fixed and established
laws
○ Despotic system: single person rules on the basis of own priorities and
perspectives
● Three worlds system
○ First world: wealthy, democratic, industrialized
○ Second world: communist systems
○ Third world: poorer, less democratic, less developed
● Democratic index (by Economist Intelligence Unit)
○ Based on 60 different ratings to come up with a score out of 10.
1
, ● Freedom in the world index (by Freedom House)
○ Divides countries into: free, partly free, or not free based on records with
political rights and civil liberties.
● Political economy: the relationship between political activity and economic
performance
○ Gross National Income (GNI): total domestic and foreign output by residents
of a country in a given year.
Comparative government and politics h3 “democratic rule”, “direct
democracy”, “representative democracy”, “liberal democracy”
Democratic rule: an overview
- Democracy: a political system in which government is based on a fair and open
mandate from all qualified citizens of a state.
- Democratization: the process by which states build the institutions and processes
needed to become stable democracies.
Features of modern democracies
- Representative systems based on regular, fair, and competitive elections.
- Well-defined, stable, and predictable political institutions and processes, based on a
distribution of powers and a system of political checks and balances.
- A wide variety of institutionalised forms of political participation and representation,
including multiple political parties with a variety of platforms.
- Limits on the powers of government, and protection of individual rights and freedoms
under the law, sustained by an independent judiciary.
- An active, effective and protected opposition.
- A diverse and independent media establishment, subject to few political controles
and free to share a wide variety of opinions.
Direct democracy
- A system of government in which all members of the community take part in making
the decisions that affect the community.
- The citizens themselves debate and reach decisions on matters of common interest.
Representative democracy
- A system of government in which members of a community elect people to represent
their interests and to make decisions affecting the community.
- Citizens elect a legislature and, in presidential systems, a chief executive.
Representatives are held to account at elections.
Liberal democracy
- A form of indirect democracy in which the scope of democracy is limited by
constitutional protection of individual rights.
- Limited government: placing limits on the powers and reach of government so
as to entrench the rights of citizens.
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