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Lecture Summary - Politics - International Studies
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All lectures of 'Politics' in the first year of International Studies summarized.
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Politics notes – Marnix van BokhorstLecture 1:
What is politics?
O’Neill: ‘’…the struggle in any group for power that will give one or more persons the ability
to make decisions for the larger group.’’
Two alternative approaches:
- ‘Who gets what when and how’ – Laswell – Overly focused on the material (O’Neill
and Laswell’s def)
- ‘The authorative allocation of values for a society’ – Easton – Values: Material and
non-material
Politics is about the ideas (values, norms), the organization (institutions) and the morality
(including legitimacy) of pursuing power at the public level, in all its forms and varieties…
Politics is about the ideas and the organization of power. How do we organize political
power (at different levels)
Important question politics: the question of legitimacy: To which extent subjects believe
those that rule over them have the right to do so
What is Political Power?
- The ability to get others to do something that they would not otherwise do. – Robert
Dahl (there’s a strong element of force in this definition)
- But political power is not solely about force, for example also about legitimacy
Definitions and varieties of power
1) Power as a resource (capability): attribute, possession
E: US spends most money on military big military. Present in Afghanistan for 20
years, however didn’t achieve a change in Afghanistan’s political system.
2) Power as an outcome (relationship): Talks about the outcome of your policies, about
your skills, strategies, and perceptions
E: US lost legitimacy in the Vietnam War. We didn’t lose the war in Vietnam, we lost
the war at home. E: Putin used minimal military force to annexate Ukraine. How?
Because he was almost certain that powerful countries such as US would never react
with military means. Here Putin relied on other factors than pure power as a
resource (big military in this case).
3) ‘institutional’ power: to be able to define the rules of international
institutions/organizations
4) And of course: hard, soft, and smart power: Hard: putting pressure on other states.
Soft: convincing other states.
All countries use a combination of both (hard and soft power)
, When you talk about politics, you talk about power. But when you talk about power
you can talk about various different things.
Political Science and its major subfields
Political Science: concerns the systematic study of ‘politics’, 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 in order in the chaos of the real political life,
with its countless variables, including the unpredictability of human behavior…
The nature of our political knowledge (ideally) is (goals of polisci)
- Descriptive (polisci describes our political life, aspects, etc.)
- Explanatory ( to explain the phenomena that you’re able to describe) (describing is
the base)
- Prescriptive (predicting political behaviour) (controversial) (aims to explain the
consequences of political behaviour)
- Counterargument by McNeil: ‘dramatic historical events often take scholars,
politicians, and even participants by surprise’.
Subfields of Political Science
- 4 subfields:
- Political Philosophy (investigation into the nature, causes and effects of good and bad
government), will be discussed in lecture 2
- Comparative Politics (this course)
- International Politics/Relations (next year)
- Public Administration (practical research resulting in policy advice or proposals.
International Relations (4 main approaches) The study of the interaction between states
(and other entities that are involved in cross border politics) and the nature of the
international system
- Realism: focus on power and the urge for states to maintain their sovereignty, power,
and survival
- Liberalism: Focus on cooperation between states, wealth creation, and institution
building.
- Constructivism: Focus on identity issues between states and within the international
system as a whole
- Critical approaches: world systems theory, green IR; Feminism, English School,
Postcolonialism.
Comparative Politics: Aims, concepts, and methods
Aims: to study and understand domestic political phenomena (formal and informal political
institutions); to explain differences and similarities among states, regions and other political
‘entities’
,Concepts: assumptions and theories that guide research. It is impossible to describe and
analyze politics without meaningful concepts.
Methods: how do we research; gather, analyse data, draw conclusion, test conclusion. E.g
comparative method, causality, correlation, etc.
The relationship between IR (international politics/relations) and CP (Comparative Politics)
- The impact of IR on domestic politics: great powers and smaller states; regional
integration (EU) and interdependency; power and international norms
- The impact of domestic order on IR: do democracies have a different foreign policy
from authoritarian regimes; the impact of populism on IR (E: how populism basically
forced the UK into leaving the EU)
- Domestic (comparative) Politics and IR are (increasingly?) difficult to empirically and
conceptually distinguish.
Lecture 2:
Prep: Machiavelli – The Prince
H17 Question asked in chapter: Is it better to be loved than to be feared, or the contrary (as
a prince, leader)? The answer is that one would like to be both, but that’s difficult so, it is
much safer to be feared than to be loved. Because men will break the chain of love on every
occasion for their own self-interest (rationale actor paradigma). However a prince must
make himself feared in a way that doesn’t turn into hatred. P.57,58. ‘’Let me conclude, then
- ….. p. 59 conclusie op dit stukje.
H18 How a prince should keep his word. 2 ways of fighting; one in accordance wit the laws,
the other with force (soft and hard power) p.60 A prince in these time should appear to be
all mercy, faithfulness, integrity, humanity, and religion. He should preach nothing but peace
and faith. P. 62 (snap dit stukje niet helemaal) A prince should know how to employ the
nature of the one and the other; for the one without the other is not lasting. P60
H19 A prince must refrain from the things that make him hated; being rapacious, a usurper
of property and the women of his subjects. If you refrain from this most men live content. A
prince must aim to show greatness, spirit, dignity, and strength in all its actions. No matter if
he does not even posses these characteristics. He must guard himself from being considered
changeable, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, and irresolute. Men will despise him for this.
One of the most important matters for a prince; not drive the nobles to desperation and
satisfy the people, keep them contended. P65
Part about roman emperors and their downfall. They had to satisfy both the soldiers and the
people, which was difficult and caused them to fall. Nowadays (Macavelli’s time) princes
have to be less concerned about this problem. Now it is more necessary to satisfy the people
instead of the soldiers. Since the people can do more than the soldiers. P.70 Sultan and Turk
, empire are exceptions cuz the power lies entirely in the hand of the soldiers. Either hatred
or contempt (minachting) (het op iemand neerkijken) has been the cause of the downfall of
one of the previously mentioned emperors. P71
p.75 The prince who is more afraid of his people than foreigners should build fortresses, but
on who is more afraid of foreigners than his people should do without them. ‘’FORTRESSES
WILL NOT SAFE YOU IF YOUR PEOPLE HATE YOU.’’ ‘’I shall reproach any prince who, trusting
in fortresses, considers the hatred of the people to be of little importance.
H21 A prince should show himself as extraordinary in both external and internal affairs p.76.
prince should also demonstrate that he is a lover of the virtues(deugdzaamheid) and
organize yearly traditional festivals for example, and honour the men who excel in a
particular skill. And he should encourage his subjects to purse their trades in tranquility. He
should offer himself as an example of humanity while at the same time maintaining his
position of majesty and dignity. P.79
H22 Ministers cannot exist without the prince and vice versa. They have to keep each other
acting well, and trust in each other. Otherwise the outcome will always be harmful either for
one or the other.
H23. A prince should not be flattered (he should not be pleased) (the more freely his e;
ministers speak to him the more he will be pleased), he should listen to other opinions etc,
for example by his ministers and then deliberate by himself in his own way. P.81 A prince
should always seek advice, but when he wants to, and not when others wish it.
H24 Only those defences that depend on you yourself and on your own virtue are good,
certain, and lasting.
H25 CONCLUSION
Many believe that the affairs of this world are controlled by Fortune and God, that men
cannot control them with their prudene. Macavelli thinks differently; Fortune is the arbiter
of one half of our actions, but that she still leaves the control of the other half to us. E: wild
river. When it first comes everyone flees etc, when the weather is calm and dikes are built it
can be contained or not so out of control the next time it pops up again. If not it will be as
destructive as it was, once again. Fortune varies and men remain obstinate in their ways,
men prosper when the two are in harmony and fail to prosper when they are not in accord.
It is better to be impetuous (onstuimig=drifting, fel, heftig, wild, woest, impetueus) than
cautious. P.86mp
Lecture 2: Political Philosophy
1. The normative dimension of PoliSci, and how it relates to
a) Political theory (what you need in order to do political science research) (either
analytically or normatively (2 forms))
b) Political ideology
c) Political culture
d) Political philosophy (a subset of political science)
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