Introduction to Politics Flashcards
What is Politics according to Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Stuart Mill?
Participation in Political life regarded as extremely noble activity that should be encouraged
What is a popular basic definition of Politics?
Process by which groups representing diverging interests, values make collective decisions
What does Harold (aswell (1936) say about politics?
Politics is about “who get’s what, when, how”
Why is the way economic goods are distributed important to keep in mind?
To determine mature of society and well-being
of those within it.
There are non-economic goods that hold value as well : eg. Status though no money reward attached to it
What was the study of politics before 19th century’s focus?
study of values : philosophy overlaps
what is the best society to live in?
who said there was a central divide for 2 centuries between those who prefer liberty and over equality those who prefer the opposite?
stocker (2006)
Give example of negative view of power
- conflict
- uneven distribution of power
- ’ politics is the art of governing manking by decieving them’
Who said : ‘ politics is the art of governing manking by decieving them’
Isaac D’Israeli (1962)
Give examples of positive view of power
- Democracy and cooperation
- power as a productive force
- allows the world to change for the better
What are the subfields of political science?
-Political theory
- comparative theory
- International relations
- canadian politics
- political economy
whatis the normative approach?
Focuses on norms, values to identify effects on politics
How can research be biased?
Research can sometime be overtly motivated by values of political scientist conducting it.
What led to the decline of the normative approach?
20th century emphasis analytical and empirical politics
advent of statistics made normativesm seem meaningless
which diverging approach also led to downfall of normativism?
Positivism:
August Comte > seeks to apply science methods to study of social events.
what is the semantic approach?
Focuses on analysing concepts used when talking about politics : language, representationsused to describepolitical events
what are ‘essentially contested concepts’ according to Gallie (1955-6)?
Defining what is meant by words such as democracy/freedom is a crucial starting point
What is the empirical approach?
identifying observable phenomena: data that are measurable
Positivism according to Garner et al.
approach that ‘holds that science must limit itself to what is observable and insists on a clear seperation between fact and value
Behaviourism
- measuring and predicting human behaviour by applying scientific method to the study of social phenomena like politics
- aspires to perfect obectivity
- Garner et al.
Who said that the semantic, empirical and normative approach go hand in hand?
Wolff (1996): ‘Studying how things are gelps explain how they can be =, and studying how they can bve is indispensible for assessing how they ought to be’
Can political theory be seperated from the study of political institutions and processes?
No:
- Studying gov without recongnition of key normative questions will only give a partial picture
- Systems of gov created by humans are a reflection of normative beliefs