STATE, POWER AND CONFLICT
6 EC (168h - 28h lect., 118h lit, 22h prep.), Jongen and Lutz — Written exam (25 oct, 6:45)
consisting of 40 multiple choice questions (100%)
Textbooks:
-politics, heywood
-The making of global international relations, acharya and buzan
-understanding global con ict and cooperation, nye jr e welch
I part, 6 lectures:
-intro to key concepts
-overview main perspective on con ict and cooperation
II part, 6 lectures:
-intro to contemporary world politics
-overview of int pol history from the 17th cent until the present
GENERAL AIMS:
- General introduction to major concepts and key approaches in political science:
- 1st part —> a critical overview is given of several key concepts and their position within political
science + contending perspectives on con ict and cooperation within modern political systems +
contemporary political phenomena … SO : concepts and topics related to the sub-discipline of
Comparative Politics
- 2nd part —> contemporary world politics and the main concepts and theories in the sub-discipline of
International Relations (overview of international political history from the 17th century to the present
+ identifying recurrent patterns of cooperation and con ict between and within states, looking at the
role of both state and non-state actors + concluded with a discussion of several key features of and
developments in contemporary global politics)
- familiarize students with key concepts and approaches in political science and how to apply these in
order to gain a better understanding of the recent history of, and contemporary issues in, world
politics.
Knowledge and understanding:
(1) different approaches to studying politics, democracy, power and in uence;
(2) what ‘states’ and ‘nations’ are and how the modern nation state (system) came into being;
(3) key approaches in political science and an overview of the discipline and major sub-disciplines;
(4) the different ways in which power can be institutionalized and legitimized;
(5) the main developments in the history of world politics from the Peace of Westphalia to the Iraq
War, and the current era of globalization and the power shift to Asia;
(6) the main patterns of cooperation and con ict among states as well as non-state actors.
Skills:
(7) apply the key political science concepts and approaches within the sub-discipline of Comparative
Politics and the sub-discipline of International Relations in an analysis of (contemporary) political
issues
Lecture 1: Politics and Ideology
Heywood, Chapter 1: What is Politics?
“Man is by nature a political animal.” ARISTOTLE, Politics
(We engage politics as human, it’s part of our nature. We’re social, we don’t live alone, we need
company for survive, but we have di erent ideas —> how should we organise ourselves in
society?)
The disagree between people it’s what makes politics the “master science” for Aristotle.
- it’s a (social) ACTIVITY though which human beings attempt to improve their lives and create
the Good Society (through dialogue —> disagreement on the nature of the subject + how it
should be studied + what it is that makes social interaction ‘political’, whether it is where it
takes place or the kind of activity it involves = theoretical approaches)
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, - globalizing tendencies have encouraged some to speculate that the disciplinary divide
between politics and international relations has now become redundant
KEY ISSUES
• What are the de ning features of politics as an activity?
• How has ‘politics’ been understood by various thinkers and traditions?
• What are the main approaches to the study of politics as an academic discipline?
• Can the study of politics be scienti c?
• What roles do concepts, models and theories play in political analysis?
• How have globalizing trends a ected the relationship between politics and international relations?
DEFINING POLITICS
Politics, in its broadest sense, is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend
the general rules under which they live.
—> politics is also an academic subject = study of this activity
Politics is thus inextricably linked to the phenomena of con ict and cooperation.
On the one hand, the existence of rival opinions, di erent wants, competing needs, and
opposing interests guarantees disagreement about the rules under which people live.
On the other hand, people recognize that, in order to in uence these rules or ensure that they
are upheld, they must work with others (H. Arendt’s, p. 7 de nition of political power as ‘acting in
concert’).
This is why the heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of con ict resolution, in which
rival views or competing interests are reconciled with one another.
However, politics in this broad sense is better thought of as a search for con ict resolution than as
its achievement, as not all con icts are, or can be, resolved. Nevertheless, the inescapable
presence of diversity (we are not all alike) and scarcity (there is never enough to go around)
ensures that politics is an inevitable feature of the human condition.
Any attempt to clarify the meaning of ‘politics’ must nevertheless address two major problems.
• 1st: mass of associations that the word has —> politics is a ‘loaded’ term, full of
preconceptions and usually thought of as a dirty word (trouble, disruption, violence,
manipulation and lies)
1775: S. Johnson dismissed politics as ‘nothing more than a means of rising in the world’,
while in the nineteenth century the US historian Henry Adams summed up politics as ‘the
systematic organization of hatreds’.
• 2nd: even respected authorities cannot agree what the subject is about
P. is de ned in such di erent ways (exercise of power, science of government, making of
collective decisions, …).
The de nition ‘the making, preserving and amending of general social rules’ is su ciently
broad to encompass most, if not all, of the competing de nitions. However, problems
arise when the de nition is unpacked, or when the meaning is re ned (=> does ‘politics’
refer to a particular way in which rules are made, preserved or amended, or to all such
processes? Is politics practised in all social contexts and institutions, or only in certain
ones?).
So, politics may be treated as an ‘essentially contested’ concept (the term has a number of
acceptable or legitimate meanings). On the other hand, these di erent views may simply consist
of contrasting conceptions of the same, if necessarily vague, concept. Whether we are dealing
with rival concepts or alternative conceptions, it is helpful to distinguish between two broad
approaches to de ning politics.
• 1st: politics is associated with an arena or location, in which case behaviour becomes
‘political’ because of where it takes place.
• 2nd: politics is viewed as a process or mechanism, in which case ‘political’ behaviour is
behaviour that exhibits distinctive characteristics or qualities, and so can take place in any
social contexts.
Each of these broad approaches has spawned alternative de nitions of politics, and, as
discussed later in the chapter, helped to shape di erent schools of political analysis.
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, Where do we draw the lines? How can we understand?
POLITICS AS THE ART OF GOVERNMENT
‘Politics is not a science but an art’, Chancellor Bismarck
The art Bismarck had in mind was the art of government, the exercise of control —> classical
de nition of politics, developed from the original meaning of the term in Ancient Greece.
The word ‘politics’ is derived from polis, meaning literally ‘city-state’.
Ancient Greek society was divided into a collection of independent city-states, each of
which possessed its own system of government (Athens: largest and most in uential, often
portrayed as the cradle of democratic government). Nowadays, it’s not as it used to be
because poor were excluded from the business of the government.
In this light, politics can be understood to refer to the a airs of the polis – in e ect, ‘what
concerns the polis’ (now: state). In many ways, the notion that politics amounts to ‘what
concerns the state’ is the traditional view of the discipline, re ected in the tendency for
academic study to focus on the personnel and machinery of government.
To study politics is: to study government, or to study the exercise of authority.
This view is advanced in the writings of the in uential US political scientist D. Easton, who de ned
politics as the ‘authoritative allocation of values’( = politics encompasses the various processes
through which government responds to pressures from the larger society, in particular by
allocating bene ts, rewards or penalties).
‘Authoritative values’ are therefore those that are widely accepted in society, and are considered
binding by the mass of citizens. In this view, politics is associated with ‘policy’: it establish a plan
of action for the community.
Authority: can most simply be de ned as ‘legitimate power’. Whereas power is the ability to
in uence the behaviour of others, authority is the right to do so. Authority is therefore based on
an acknowledged duty to obey. Weber distinguished between three kinds of authority, based on
the di erent grounds on which obedience can be established: traditional authority is rooted in
history; charismatic authority stems from personality; and legal–rational authority is grounded in
a set of impersonal rules.
However, what is striking about this de nition is that it o ers a highly restricted view of politics.
Politics is what takes place within a polity, a system of social organization centred on the
machinery of government —> therefore is practised in cabinet rooms, legislative chambers,
government departments and the like; and it is engaged in by a limited and speci c group of
people, notably politicians, civil servants and lobbyists.
This means that most people, most institutions and most social activities can be regarded as
being ‘outside’ politics, because they are not engaged in ‘running the country’. (+ to portray
politics as an essentially state-bound activity is to ignore the increasingly important international
or global in uences on modern life).
Polity: A society organized through the exercise of political authority; for Aristotle, rule by the
many in the interests of all.
The realm of ‘the political’ is restricted to those state actors who are consciously motivated by
ideological beliefs, and who seek to advance them through membership of a formal organization
such as a political party. Civil servants are seen as ‘non-political’, as long as they act in a neutral
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, and professional fashion (ex: judges, but they may be accused of being ‘political’ if their
judgement is in uenced by personal preferences or some other form of bias).
The link between politics and the a airs of the state also helps to explain why negative or
pejorative images have so often been attached to politics. This is because, in the popular mind,
politics is closely associated with the activities of politicians (they’re often seen as power-seeking
hypocrites who conceal personal ambition behind the rhetoric of public service and ideological
conviction) —> the perception of the state as politics as a self-serving, two-faced and
unprincipled activity has become more common in the modern period, as intensi ed media
exposure has more e ectively brought to light examples of corruption and dishonesty, giving rise
to the phenomenon of anti-politics. Such an image of politics is sometimes traced back to the
writings of Niccolò Machiavelli, who, in The Prince ([1532] 1961), developed a strictly realistic
account of politics that drew attention to the use by political leaders of cunning, cruelty and
manipulation.
Anti-politics: Disillusionment with formal or established political processes, re ected in
non-participation, support for anti-system parties, or the use of direct action.
Such a negative view of politics re ects the essentially liberal perception that, as individuals are
self-interested, political power is corrupting, because it encourages those ‘in power’ to exploit
their position for personal advantage and at the expense of others.
Lord Acton’s (1834–1902) aphorism: ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely’.
Nevertheless, few who view politics in this way doubt that political activity is an inevitable
and permanent feature of social existence.
However venal politicians may be, there is a general, if grudging, acceptance that they are always
with us. Without some kind of mechanism for allocating authoritative values, society would simply
disintegrate into a civil war of each against all, as the early social-contract theorists argued.
The task is therefore not to abolish politicians and bring politics to an end but, rather, to ensure
that politics is conducted within a framework of checks and constraints that guarantee that
governmental power is not abused.
Power: in its broadest sense, is the ability to achieve a desired outcome, sometimes seen as the
‘power to’ do something. This includes everything from the ability to keep oneself alive to the
ability of government to promote economic growth. In politics, however, power is usually thought
of as a relationship; that is, as the ability to in uence the behaviour of others in a manner not of
their choosing. This implies having ‘power over’ people. More narrowly, power may be associated
with the ability to punish or reward, bringing it close to force or manipulation, in contrast to
‘in uence’.
POLITICS AS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
A second and broader conception of politics is the distinction between ‘the political’ and ‘the
non-political’ coincides with the division between an essentially public sphere of life and what
can be thought of as a private sphere.
Such a view of politics is often traced back to the work of the famous Greek philosopher
Aristotle. In Politics, Aristotle declared that ‘man is by nature a political animal’, by which
he meant that it is only within a political community that human beings can live the ‘good
life’. From this viewpoint, then, politics is an ethical activity concerned with creating a ‘just
society’; it is what Aristotle called the ‘master science’.
However, where should the line between ‘public’ life and ‘private’ life be drawn?
The institutions of the state (the apparatus of government, the courts, the police, the army, the
social security system, and so forth) can be regarded as ‘public’ in the sense that they are
responsible for the collective organization of community life. Moreover, they are funded at the
public’s expense, out of taxation.
In contrast, civil society consists of what E. Burke called the ‘little platoons’, institutions such as
the family and kinship groups, private businesses, trade unions, clubs, community groups and
so on, that are ‘private’ in the sense that they are set up and funded by individual citizens to
satisfy their own interests, rather than those of the larger society.
Those areas of life that individuals can and do manage for themselves (the economic, social,
domestic, personal, cultural and artistic spheres, and so on) are therefore clearly ‘non-political’.
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