SESSION 1 & 2
INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL SCIENCE
POLITICS
-Reasons why discipline both very old and relatively recent:
- Old: Closeness with neighboring disciplines
- New: Requirement of a freedom of thought and expression that is recent
-Positivist (explain) vs normative (prescribe) vision
-politics vs policy vs polity
-Politics: a sphere of action as a well as a sphere of thought
- Policy: designates a set of decisions organizing the sphere of actions
- Polity: refers to a way of structuring a political order in a specific territory
-Tensions produce 2 visions:
-Politics as a social action shaped by the use of power
- Politics as a social function to organize social coexistence and the polity (the place where
politics happens)
POLITICAL SCIENCE: POWER VS FUNCTION
SCIENCE OF POWER
- Power has its own specificity, its modes of legitimacy, its types of action and intervention; it is
inseparable from politics, which could not work without power.
- Machiavelli (virtu) – politics implies the ability to impose one’s will on others.
-Gramsci (Hegemony) – Civil society rule by manufacturing consent (legitimacy)
- counter-hegemonic’ struggle – advancing alternatives to dominant ideas of what is normal
and legitimate
-Weber (match) – power is the ability to achieve one’s interest even against someone else’s will, by
using any means (coercion)
POLITICS AS A FUNCTION
- Politics contributing to the conditions of social coexistence. Politics is as the means of keeping
together individuals in a society.
-Normative conception (focused on what the world should be)
-Factors triggering our political structures and creating a common identity (nation):
-Enmity – the ‘we’ as a opposite to the ‘others’
-Territorial dimension / Social stratification (division of groups) – a large territory implies
administration and coordination (bureaucracy and rules)
MAJOR CONSTITUTIVE ELEMENTS IN THE DEFINITION POLITICS
, 1) Durkheim: integration. Platonic: Humans political animals. Artistotelian: Hummans social ani
2) Webber: domination promoting social relations. Creation of state. Pol is science of W states
3) Marx: managing class domination. Bourgeoisie manage conflicts w/ power.
POLITICAL SYSTEMS & SOCIAL STRUCTURES
-Cities:
-Oldest type of polity
-Formed by people claiming to live together (commonalities & territory)
-Segmental systems:
-Families in clans, tribes (nomads – idea of territory disappears) – council of elders, family
authority
-Political space is movable – solidarity and interactions shape political order
-Empires:
-Politics is organized in an authoritarian, bureaucratic and centralized way
-Margins instead of borders
-Charismatic leadership, traditional legitimacy, religion as the main marker of politics (rather
than the territory)
-Nation-states:
-Is associated to political modernity, whereas other conceptions are primitive or premodern
(Euro/Western-centric approach & history as linear progression)
- De-linking state and society with institutions, defined territory, sovereignty, centrality
-Weberian definition of politics – community of human beings gathered for the sole purpose
of accomplishing political functions in and for the (secular) nation-state
FROM POLITICS TO POLITICAL SCIENCE
-Traditional political science – normative (prescribed)
-The purpose was to imagine the best possible model of political system for the common
wellbeing of society (political philosophy)
-New political science – empirical (through experience)
-Politics needs to be explained before it can be prescribed
SUB-DISCIPLINES OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
-Political Philosophy/theory (ideas of justice, freedom, liberty)
-Political behaviour (attitudes, beliefs, culture)
, -International relations (interconnectedness of political actors and institutions on a global level)
-Public administration and public policies (government and governance)
-Political economy (interaction of political and economic processes within a society)
-Political sociology (sociological analysis of politics)
-Comparative politics (systematic analysis of political and social objects)
‘IMPERIAL SCIENCES’
-Strong interdependence results sometimes in a domination by one of them over the others
-Economy:
1. Politics is a direct product of economic conditions (Marx – politics as the superstructure of
economics)
2. Politics is committed to the same processes and rationality as economics (Rational choice
theory – political human as self-interest and maximizing being)
-Limitation – excluding values, perceptions, emotions with simple analogies between
economic rationality and political choice
-Law:
- Politics as part of constitutional law – focuses on norms and institutions and not on
political behaviour, culture and public opinion
RELATIONSHIP WITH SOCIAL SCIENCES
-Philosophy:
-Political theorists started to shift from normative theories to empirical/positive theories as
instruments to construct the real world.
-Anthropology
-Catch the elementary substance of politics & explain the differentiated political order in
traditional societies.
-Examine the transitions to liberal democracy and decolonization
-Politics of meaning, imagined communities, & the nation
-Geography
-Importance of geopolitics – main international issues can be explained by making use of
geographical explanations
-Venezuela crises
- Cuban crises
-Yemen
-Political science cannot remain separated from the other social sciences
-It is not possible to investigate politics without a strong consideration of economics, sociology and
history (etc.)
SESSION 3 & 4
FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHICAL NOTIONS
Ontology: Philosophical field of the study of all that is or exists– (absolute truths)
Epistemology: Study of knowledge/science and how to reach it (explanations based on reasoning
and observations). 2 main perspectives for knowing
, • Positivism – knowledge can only be obtained through logical or mathematical proof
• Interpretivism – knowledge requires the interpretation of the elements of study (role of
researcher) “interpretive researchers assume that access to reality is only through social
constructions such as language, consciousness, shared meanings, and instruments”
Methodology: Study of the procedures and tools in science. How do we get scientific knowledge?
SOCIAL SCIENCES VS NATURAL SCIENCES: EPISTEMOLOGICAL (tok) FOUNDATIONS OF SOCIAL
SCIENCES
Multidimensionality - multiple dimensions of human existence
• Objective – there are identifiable objects (tangible and observable)
• Critical - dialectical position of Marx – the objective dimension of the modes of production and
social reproduction is the basic one, from which the others are derived
Subjective – objects are perceived by individuals and translated into concrete actions
• Behaviouralist position – subjective perceptions is where human beings conduct actions
(subjective perceptions shape social and political life) – electoral studies and cultural research
Normative – concerns with ethical judgments of good and bad actions
• Philosophical position focusing in the search of a potential universal ontology (absolute truth)
Self-referential aspects: As humans and social beings we are inevitably part of the subject of study
• Even with all the ‘objective’ and ‘scientific’ attempts to detach ourselves from the object of study,
a subjective influence persists
Limitation from the naturalist perspective, but it is also an advantage
• We can interact with our object of study, understand and interpret the meanings of their
thoughts and actions
• With a theoretical framework and the scientific method we can transform and interpret
information coming from our object of study (humans)
LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
We can conduct research on multiple levels:
1. A macro-level:
-Refers to large social entities (nation-states, economies, international organizations)
2. A micro-level:
-Refers to individuals living and acting in these macro-level entities
3. A meso-level:
-Refers to organized groups of persons in associations (social movements, political parties,
trade unions)
CAUSALITY
