Lecture 1. What is Politics? What is Political Science
What is Politics? What is Political Power?
O’Neil (p. 6-23): defines politics as follows:
“The struggle in any group for power that will give one or more persons the ability to make
decisions for the larger group.”
- Key definitions in his explanation: Politics is about struggle and power
Two Alternative Approaches:
‘Who gets what when and how’ (Harold Lasswell, Who Gets What, When, and How, 1936)
1. Overly focused on the material
- ‘The authoritative allocation of values for a society.’ (David Easton, A Framework
for Political Analysis, 1965)
- Focused on the material dimensions of power. They do not explicitly talk about
values, or norms, or ethics. Power is never just material, thus this material is
overly focused.
2. Values: material and non-material
- There is no clear distinction between values and interests. These are
interconnected but are different from one another. Often, interests are defined
as material issues, and values are defined as non-material issues.
Main argument:
Politics include power. Power includes interests and values, material and non-material
dimensions. All of this together can define politics as the ideas (values, norms) and the
organization (institutions) and the morality (including legitimacy) of pursuing power and
keeping it at the public level in all its forms and varieties.
> One of the most important moral questions when discussing politics and power is the issue
of legitimacy. Legitimacy means that people who rule are justified to rule in the eyes of those
over which they rule. Legitimacy essentially talks about subjects and the question to which
extent subjects believe that those who rule/govern them have the authority and right to do so.
Thus, legitimacy is not the same as material/naked power, but it is an important component of
politics.
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)
- In other words, Dahl describes political power as being about force.
- However, this is not the case, political power can also be about legitimacy. If this is the
case, subjects believe that those who rule over them, have the right to do so. Therefore
they accept political power willingly and are therefore not based on force but on
legitimacy (and consensus between rulers and ruled).
Definitions and Varieties of Power
Definitions of power and influence:
1. Power as a resource (capability)
, - About attributes/possessions
- The power means that someone has at their disposal (both material and
immaterial), and the extent to which they can apply their means in a given
situation to reach their political goals
- Power as a resource → Conversion/application → Outcome
2. Power as an outcome (relationship)
- About skills, strategies, and perceptions (public opinion)
- Examples:
- In the mid-1970s when the US saw itself forced to strike a deal with its
military opponent in the Vietnam War. The US proved incapable of
winning this war. One of the major reasons was that the war became
increasingly unpopular among the public opinion of the people in the
US. It was said that the US didn’t lose the war in Vietnam, but they lost
the war at home. This is an example of how power can never be simply
translated into a certain outcome, there are various factors that
determine how effective power actually is.
- Putin phenomena: Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation
used minimum military force to occupy the Crimea Peninsula. The reason
why Putin would invade a foreign country was that he was almost certain
that other more powerful countries would protest this isolation but they
would never act offensively. Putin knew that he could take this military
risk as a relatively minor power because he anticipated that for example,
the US would not react with any military means.
- In other words, the extent to which something is successful in
international relations and politics does not only rely on your material
power. It relies on numerous other variables/factors, including political
skills, the agreement between rulers and the ruled, and the influence of
the people in power over the people that are being ruled.
- This belief is upheld by E.H. Carr, ‘Power over Opinion’ (The Twenty
Years Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study of International
Relations, London, 1939). Power over opinion talks about the extent to
which a government influences public opinion, which is a very important
political asset. Nowadays, power over opinion is called Soft Power. Soft
power is of importance when we talk about domestic politics.
- On the other hand, there is Hard Power, which is mostly material power
that is being used by countries to force others to do what the
government wants you to do. By pressuring/threatening others on the
basis of hard power resources. Hard power can be both economic and
military power. In contrast, Soft Power is about convincing (not
pressuring) others to do what a country/government wants on the basis
of attracting components of a state.
- No single country exercises power exclusively on the basis of hard
power, this is
possible during a situation of war, but not for decades on end. States
always need a combination of hard power and soft power.
3. ‘Institutional’ power
, - The extent to which governments/states are able to define the rules of
international institutions/organizations
> Example of Power as a Resource & Power as an Outcome:
International relations is in objective terms by far the most powerful military actor in global
politics. The US spends as much on its military sector (around 700 billion US dollars on a yearly
basis) as the nine next countries in line. In absolute terms, the US is a lot more powerful than
any other state. However, if you apply it to Afghanistan, where the US military has been present
in the last years, it has not been able to change the Afghan political system despite its
enormous military.
=> Main takeaway: Politics always include the concept of power. Power can be explained
through various other concepts (power as a resource or outcome, hard and soft power,
institutional power).
Political Science and its Major Subfields
What is Political Science?
Political Science concerns the (systematic) study of politics
> Example: 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 most important factor:) the
unpredictability of human behavior
The Nature of Political Knowledge:
1. Descriptive: political science describes political life/issues
2. Explanatory: political science aims to explain political behavior/phenomena
3. Prescriptive: political science aims to predict political behavior and its consequences
- O’Neil (3): ‘Dramatic historical events often take scholars, politicians, and even
participants by surprise’
- > Counterargument for the prescriptive aspirations of political science (the
aspirations may be there, but in reality, political life is too difficult to predict)
=> Thus, the nature of our political knowledge is threefold.
About the Study of Politics: The Subfields of ‘Political Science’
- Politics is complex. Political science is therefore divided into different subfields.
These subfields include:
- Political Philosophy: ‘investigation into the nature, causes, and effects of good
and bad government’ (next lecture)
- Comparative Politics: research into domestic political realms but on a
comparative basis (this course)
- International Politics/Relations: world politics (next year) (see below)
- Public Administration: practical research resulting in policy advice or proposals,
assessment of political decisions and administration, quality of decision-making,
training of political and 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
Approaches of International Relations:
1. Realism: Focus on power and the urge for states to maintain their sovereignty, power,
and survival
2. Liberalism: Focus on cooperation between states, wealth creation, and institution
building
3. Constructivism: Focus on identity issues between states and within the international
system as a whole
4. Critical approaches: World-systems theory, Green International Relations (environmental
issues), Feminism (gender issues), English School, Postcolonialism (history and
consequences of colonial relations)
Comparative Politics: Aims, Concepts, and Methods
- Aims:
- To study and understand domestic political phenomena (O’Neill: formal and
informal political institutions)
- To explain differences and similarities among states, regions, and other political
‘entities’ (in order to become better citizens (O’Neill, p. 5)) (O’Neil also looks at
political institutions in an informal sense, such as through agreements and
identities)
- Concepts:
- Assumptions and theories that guide research
> Example: (some scholars argue:) people behave rationally, therefore political
science can have predictive power, formal and informal institutions are also
assumptions
- You cannot study politics without deliberately designed theoretical concepts,
because it is needed to describe and analyze politics
- Methods:
- How we do research: gather, analyze data, how do we draw conclusions, how do
we test them?
> Example: comparative method, based on inductive (from a case study to a
general hypothesis) or deductive reasoning (from hypothesis to evidence)
- Establish correlation, causality (linking cause and effect), multi-causality,
quantitative (based on larger data), and qualitative research (based on
observable phenomena)
- Single-case, large-research, mono- and multi-disciplinary research, etc.
The Relationship between International Relations and Comparative Politics
> International Relations and Comparative Politics are so closely related because both are
dependent on what is going on in the domestic borders of a country, and what effect it has
globally.
- The impact of International Politics/Relations on Domestic Politics: Great powers affects
the domestic and international relations of smaller states, regional integration (EU) and
