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Lecture notes for The Politics of Difference (FY)

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  • Course
  • The Politics of Difference (73220044FY)
  • Institution
  • Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)

The document includes lecture slides and notes, as well as some summaries of the readings (not all of them). It is mainly concentrated on the content of lectures since this will be the main focus of the exam.

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Document information

  • March 21, 2023
  • 73
  • 2022/2023
  • Class notes
  • Saskia bonjour & darshan vigneswaran
  • All classes

Subjects

  • pod
  • politics of difference
  • political science
  • lectures
  • slides
  • uva
  • exam
  • notes

Written for

  • Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
  • Politicologie
  • The Politics of Difference (73220044FY)
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QUIZ I

Lecture 1

The politics of difference: “how power and political institutions categorize people into groups
and how this generates inequality”.

 Politics of difference depends on what is considered normal. For example, laws
and policies are made for ‘”normal families” (man, woman, children, same ethnicity,
etc.).
 The traditional idea is that difference deserves to be protected but only in the private
sphere. The public sphere should be neutral.


How should Political Scientists study difference?
 Public sphere is a sphere not for difference but for sharing and reconciling our
differences- our distinctions should not be made clear in the public sphere (by the
state).
 This is what would be called discrimination, for example.
 Private sphere is the sphere where differences can be set out
o Critique: People not fitting the norm have to adapt themselves in the public
sphere
o Can we really distinguish between public/private spheres? And what does
neutral mean?


Interests vs ideas
 Interests are things that everyone has, while ideas and identity are much more
personal. I might have an interest in utilizing something, but I know that this might
not resonate well with other people  this is the identity/communicative part of
politics.


Key takeaways
• The politics of difference refers to: “how power and political institutions categorize
people into groups and how this generates inequality.”
• 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 respecting
individual freedom in the private sphere.
• Critical theorists question the possibility of a "neutral" public sphere.
• Describing difference – through statistics or otherwise – is political.


Lecture 2


What is the public sphere?
 The Public Sphere is:
o a communicative ‘realm;
o to discuss and debate the common interest and government;
o where the ‘force of the better argument wins’ (coercion is absent)
o and where participants leave their status and identities behind.


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


Who is actually part of the public?
 There’s this idea that decisions are decided not by people with money but by the force
of reason  example of Ghandi, fasting to gain independence for India.


All theory is for someone and some purpose.
 Positionality matters when choosing sources for your research: method gender,
race/ethnicity, nationality/class, language…
 There is an implicit acceptance of certain rules in academia.
 University, for example, is a public sphere, but you cannot say anything you want and
how you want  it is a specific type of public sphere.


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 of the phenomenon of disinformation
 The scale and repeated use of misinformation has reduced trust in institutions that
decide what is true.
 In politics, distinguishing between truth and false is impossible.
 If we think of the Public Sphere as a realm of communication where the force of the
better argument wins, and some arguments are more likely to be seen due to the
censoring out of true information, then this playing field is unfair since it dilutes our
perception of true information.


Mistruth: strategy in authoritarian regimes
 Hashtags that have been banned
 Cutting off true information


B&L main arguments:
 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.
 State interference= governments manipulate what people think about
parties/politicians
 Erosion of liberal institutions= The institutions that decided whether the president was
saying the truth are in decline because people have lost trust in them. For example,
votes for Supreme Court Justices: if the Supreme Court Justices prior to being
accepted do not ideologically fit in with either the Republican or the Democrat
thought, they get less support.


The authors argue that there are 2 types of causes in social science:
1. Active cause
2. Missing cause


They conclude it’s about institutions that used to always be there to prevent misinformation
but have now changed and thus caused a loss of faith in political actors.

, The Public Sphere and Difference: Who is the Community?
 Exclusion of the public: ethnic minorities
 Dreamer’s: Children who don’t have official documents because their parents brought
them to the U.S. and didn’t get them documents. But these people cannot speak out
because they risk being deported.
 Chinese crops: they are on lockdown so they cannot import anything from southeast
Asia.
 Those who (will) have to bear the burdens of climate change are people
demonstrating against climate change.


Young
The article begins with a critique on deliberative democracy.
 Her argument is that certain voices are more valuable than others.
 One of the main things that’s devalued in the public sphere is what goes against our
values and opinions.
 Young argues that the problem is that there is a specific logic that we look for in
arguments.


The Public Sphere and Difference: What type of speech is valued?
There are 3 ways of opening up the public sphere to difference (to change the way we
argue)


 Greeting
 Rhetoric (we use speech to pull the strings of desire)
 Story-telling


In the public sphere, we need to have forms of speech that are accessible to all different
types of listeners.


This produces a public sphere that:
 Instead of encouraging pure objectivity, encourages participants to reflect on their
positionality.

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