1. About the Politics course, objectives and overview
2. What is Politics, Political Power, and Political Science?
3. The major subfields of Political Science
Lectures by Dr. Tim Stacey and Prof. André Gerrits
Tutorials by Joost Baarssen (coordinator)
Course objectives:
- To discuss key theoretical and empirical concepts and approaches used to study politics.
Centered around two clusters:
o state – nation
o diversity and democracy – authoritarianism
main message: it becomes increasingly difficult to divide democracy and authoritarian
regimes because both are ideologically driven
- To develop a critical, comparative approach to the study of politics of the region of choice, to
be elaborated in tutorials and area courses
Even regimes like that of North-Korea are having an increasingly hard time to rid itself
from outside influences
Interdependency
- To compare between global political phenomena and regional and national specifics
Sovereignty
Supranationality
Course overview
- Week 1: What is Politics, what is Political Science?
- Week 2: Political Philosophy
- Week 3: States
o Most important institution in international relations
o Often both the problem and the solution
- Week 4: Nations and Society
o Margaret Thatcher/the Iron Lady: society does not exist (anti-EU)
o Nation vs State
- Week 5: Youth and Social Change
- Week 6: Developing Countries
- Week 7: Non-Democratic Governance
- Week 8: Democratic Governance
- Week 9: Political Violence
- Week 10: Religion and Politics
- Week 11: Politics Beyond the State
- Week 12: The Future of Democracy – Preparing for the Exam
o What is the future of democratic politics?
o Democracy is in a state of crisis/malaise
o Paradigm: liberal democracy is the end-goal of man-kind (western
arrogance/naivety)
2
,The end of history and the last man – Francis Fukuyama the symbol of the post-cold war decades
What is Politics?
- ‘the struggle in any group for power that will give one or more persons the ability to make
decisions for the larger group.’ - O’Neill (pp. 6, 23)
o Partocracy: a democracy dominated by a small minority organized in political parties
o Politics is about power
- Two alternative approaches:
o ‘Who gets what when and how’
(Harold Lasswell, Who Gets What, When, and How, 1936)
Overly focused on the material
o ‘The authoritative allocation of values for a society.’
(David Easton, A Framework for Political Analysis,1965)
Politics are driven by values
Values are material and non-material
Justice/order
Economy/military power/institutions
- Politics is about the ideas, the organization (institutions) and the morality (including
legitimacy) of pursuing power at the public level, in all its forms and varieties
o Everything is private until it becomes public
o Power vs Legitimacy
Power = the ability to get something done (soft/hard power)
Legitimacy = a key component of society willingly accepts power because
they believe their rulers have the right to rule over them
Religion/tradition/democratic procedures
o Examples: monarchy/Trump/Putin/Dutch Prime-Minister
They might not be popular but their power is legitimate
What is Political Power?
The ability to get others to do something that they would not otherwise do.
(Robert Dahl, Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City, 1961)
What is Political Science?
- Political Science concerns the systematic study of ‘politics’
o i.e. to provide us with the tools (theories, concepts, methods) to generate
knowledge and understanding of politics, to better understand the political world, to
bring order in the chaos of real political life, with its countless variables, including
the unpredictability of human behaviour
human agency is the most important variable in political science
- The nature of political knowledge:
o Descriptive
o Explanatory
o Prescriptive
‘Dramatic historical events often take scholars, politicians, and even
participants by surprise’ - (O’Neill, 3)
About the study of politics – The subfields of ‘Political Science’
3
, - Political Philosophy or the ‘investigation into the nature, causes and effects of good and bad
government’ (next week)
- Comparative Politics (this course)
- International Politics/Relations (next year)
- Public Administration Practical research resulting in policy advice or proposals;
assessment of political decisions and administration; quality of decision-making;
training of political/administrative officials, etc.
International Relations
- The study of the interaction between states (and other entities that are involved in cross
border politics) and the nature of the international system
States are the most important institutions in international relations
o Realism: Focus on power and the urge for states to maintain their sovereignty,
power, and survival
Almost no country would willingly give up its existence, but there are
exemptions
German Democratic Republic willingly gave up its sovereignty
The USSR willingly ceased to exist
o Liberalism: Focus on cooperation between states, wealth creation, and institution
building
The UN’s Security Council looks a lot like a world government (but the 5P
never agree, so it is a very inefficient world government)
o Constructivism: Focus on identity issues between states and within the international
system as a whole
Not only focused on power but also on identity/tradition/religion/culture/
language/history/values/norms
o Critical approaches:
World systems theory;
Green IR;
Feminism;
English School;
Postcolonialism;
Comparative politics: aims, concepts, and methods
- Aims:
o To study and understand domestic political phenomena
(O’Neill: formal and informal political institutions);
o to explain differences and similarities among states, regions and other political
‘entities’;
o in order to become better citizens
(O’Neill, p.5)
responsible citizen/political behaviour
individually determined
determined by conditions
global citizenship? (cosmopolitanism/universalism)
- Concepts:
o assumptions and theories that guide research
examples:
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