POS 3113 Module 1-2 Flashcards

Ontology

It ask the questions: What exists? What is political reality made of?

Colin Hay

Who is the Author for the reading “What’s ‘Political’ About Political Science?”

Epistemology

It ask the questions: What can we know? With what degree of confidence?

Methodology

It ask the questions: How should inquiry proceed? What research strategy follows?

Norman Blaikie

In the reading of Colin Hay, who did he cite in his definition for Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology?

Ontological atomist

An ______________ privileges individuals, their needs, capacities and motivations.

Ontological structuralist

An _______________ gives explanatory priority to social relations, processes and structures.

Ontology, Epistemology, Methodology

Enumerate the 3 levels/questions of political inquiry

directional dependence

Ontology, Epistemology, and Methodology have a _______________ ______________ (2 words) relationship.

The Political Question

A foundational question that ask:

• What is the nature of political reality?

• Where are the boundaries of the political?

• What units constitute the political world?

• What counts as a political explanation?

The Science Question

A foundational question that ask:

• What can we know about political reality?

• How certain can our claims be?

• Can political inquiry be objective?

• Should it emulate the natural sciences?

reflexive debate

Political Science has entered a ____________ about both the nature of its subject matter and the kinds of claims it can legitimately make.

Politics

It concerns power and its effects on resources and the transformative capacities of agents, agencies and institutions.

Epistemology

It concerns the conditions under which knowledge of political reality can be acquired. It asks how much certainty can legitimately be claimed and whether findings can be generalized beyond their immediate context. It also asks how competing explanations can be compared and defended.

Political analysis

____________ is better understood as a collection of analytical strategies that may rest on incompatible assumptions

Politics as Arena

Defined by where it happens; State, government, public institutions; Same activity elsewhere may be ‘non

True

TRUE OR FALSE: Feminist scholarship challenges the identification of politics with the public sphere.

False

TRUE OR FALSE: If the public sphere is declared non-political by definition, relations of oppression, subordination and resistance located in family, body, sexuality and interpersonal life disappear from political inquiry.

Politics as Process

Defined by what happens; Power, distribution, domination, transformation; Can occur in any social setting; Political inquiry follows relations rather than institutional walls.

The personal is political

The slogan ‘the personal is political’ therefore challenges the terrain of the discipline, not simply its list of topics.

Power

According to Colin Hay, it is about context-shaping: the capacity of actors to redefine the parameters of what is socially, politically and economically possible for others/

False

TRUE OR FALSE: According to Colin Hay, politics may be everywhere, and everything is exhaustively political.

Naturalism

Claims an essential unity of method between natural and social sciences; Assumes common scientific standards can apply across domains; Does not necessarily entail strict positivism.

Positivism

Models social inquiry on natural science; Privileges observable evidence and empirical testing; Historically associated with objectivity and value

Rationalism

Reason and deduction; General axioms precede explanation; Appearance may differ from underlying reality; Modern parallel: rational choice / some realist approaches.

Empiricism

Experience and observation; Induction from cases toward generalization; Reality assumed accessible through the senses; Modern parallel: behaviouralism.

Falsification

Science progresses not by proving theories true but by exposing them to severe tests and eliminating false claims.

Theory, Deduction, Observation, Test, Revise

Enumerate the 5 Steps of the Positivist Logic

Karl Popper

He rejects induction as the defining logic of science and proposes falsifiability, refutability, or testability as the criterion of scientific status.

Bhaskar

In the reading of Colin Hay, who did he cite for the limits of naturalism?

rules

The _______ of political and social systems are continually reproduced and transformed.

Positivism

A Response to the Ethical Problem: It denies or minimizes the normative content behind objectivity and truth

Radical relativism

A Response to the Ethical Problem: It embrace theory/valueladenness but risk losing grounds for critique

Hay’s Third Way

A Response to the Ethical Problem:

• Accept that political analysis is inherently political

• Recognize explanation as interpretive

• Acknowledge normative content

• Make ethical and ontological assumptions explicit

Goodin and Klingemann

These duo emphasize disciplinary maturation through differentiation, integration and an increasingly shared methodological tool kit.

ordered eclecticism

Goodin and Klingemann’s ‘_______________’ asks scholars to combine approaches intelligently; Hay reminds us that approaches may rest on incompatible conceptions of reality and knowledge

Charles S. Pierce

Who was the main philosopher and scientist discussed in the work “Why Theorize and Can You Learn to Do It?”

Bristol

The crime took place on a steamship called _________, which was traveling between Boston and New York.

overcoat, Tiffany watch, gold chain

What were the items of Pierce that were stolen?

Pinkertons

What was the name of the famous detective agency Pierce went to?

George Bangs

What was the name of the detective from Pinkertons?

Guessing

What was the name of the article that Pierce wrote about his experience?

art of inquiry

Charles Pierce regarded his experience as instructive for scientists—an example of the _______________.

Abduction

Peirce called the generation of a plausible explanatory hypothesis ___________.

Abduction

This concept asks: What possible explanation would make sense of what I have observed?

Abduction

It is the imaginative move from a puzzling phenomenon toward a tentative explanation.

Abduction

It is the heart of creative theorizing.

Observation

Three Movements of Inquiry: Notice a phenomenon or puzzle.

Abduction

Three Movements of Inquiry: Generate a plausible explanation.

Testing

Three Movements of Inquiry: Confront the idea with facts.

Observation, Abduction, Testing

Enumerate the Three Movements of Inquiry as per Charles Pierce

Faculty of Guessing

Peirce believed human beings possess a natural capacity to generate explanations—a ‘___________________.’

Creative Theorizing

The goal is disciplined creativity: imagination followed by rigorous scrutiny.

See, Imagine, Test, Revise

Enumerate the Four Authors’ Conception of Science (Piercean Foundation) in the reading that involves Charles Pierce

Theorizing

It is presented as something researchers do, not merely something they read. It begins with close observation of a phenomenon. It involves naming and conceptualizing what has been observed. It requires building a tentative theory by giving the emerging idea body and structure.

explanation

Ultimately, a theory must offer an ___________—not simply a description

Observe, Name, Conceptualize, Build, Explain

Enumerate the 5 Steps in Building out the Theory

Essentially Contested

Meaning of ________________: There are different applications or interpretations of the sorts of abstract, qualitative/quantitative, and evaluative notions as used in different domains (Gallie, 1955)

Politics

It focus on power (values) (distribution, exercise, and consequences of power)

Political

It encompasses the entire sphere of the social

Political

All events, processes and practices which occur within the social sphere have the potential to be political and, hence, to be amenable to political analysis.

Extra-Political Variables

Political analysts simply cannot afford to leave the analysis of economics to economists, history to historians and so forth.

Mainstream

This means that they are the dominant trend analytical perspectives.

Rational Choice Theory, Behaviouralism, New Institutionalism

Enumerate the 3 Political Science Mainstream

Rational choice theory

It is, in essence, what you get if you seek to model political behaviour on the simplifying assumption that political actors are instrumental, self-serving utility maximizers.

Rational choice theory

In this Political Science Mainstream: Individuals are rational and behave as if they engage in a cost

cost-benefit analysis

In RCT, Individuals are rational and behave as if they engage in a ________________ of each and every choice available to them before plumping for the optio

Behaviouralism

The tendency to emphasize the observable and those variables which might more easily be quantified, has tended to result in certain distinctive features of behaviouralism.

Behaviouralism

These include a focus on power as decision-making and a tendency to assume that an analysis of the inputs into the political system, such as the pressure exerted by interest groups upon the state, is sufficient to account adequately for political outcomes.

political outcomes

Behaviouralism include a focus on power as decisionmaking and a tendency to assume that an analysis of the inputs into the political system, such as the pressure exerted by interest groups upon the state, is sufficient to account adequately for __________________.

New Institutionalism

It marks a return, albeit rather more consciously theorized, to an older tradition of institutional analysis.

New Institutionalism

Emphasizes the mediating role of the institutional contexts in which events occur, rejecting what it sees as the input

New Institutionalism

It draws attention to the significance of history, timing and sequence in explaining political dynamics.

New Institutionalism

It challenges the assumed regularity in human behaviour on which rests behaviouralism’s reliance on a logic of extrapolation and generalization (or induction).

anarchy

The concept that highlights that the international system lacks a central authority above states.

power

The ability of a state to influence others or control outcomes.

National interest

The primary goals a state seeks to secure, often survival and security.

self-help

States must rely on their own capabilities for survival

Balance of power

Distribution of power among states to prevent dominance by one state.

Alliance

It is the formal or informal agreement between states for mutual security.

Security dilemma

Actions taken by one state to increase security may threaten others.

Polarity

The number of major powers in the system (unipolar, bipolar, multipolar).

Unipolar

One single state holds the vast majority of economic, military, and political power, facing no equal competitors (a hegemon).

Bipolar

Power is split clearly between two main rival superpowers or opposing blocs.

Multipolar

Power is divided among three or more major powers or regional centers of influence with roughly similar strength. [1, 2]

Hans Morgenthau

A major realist theorist focusing on classical realism; power politics rooted in human nature.

Kenneth Waltz

A major realist theorist focusing on structural realism; system structure shapes behavior.

John Mearsheimer

A major realist theorist focusing on offensive realism; states seek regional hegemony.

cooperation

One of the core assumptions of Liberalism that states can work together for mutual benefit.

Interdependence

One of the core assumptions of Liberalism that economic and social connections reduce conflict likelihood.

institutions

One of the core assumptions of Liberalism that international organizations help regulate state behavior.

Democratic Peace Theory

Democracies are less likely to go to war with each other.

collective security

States agree to respond collectively to aggression.

global governance

Rules and norms guiding international cooperation.

Economic integration

Removal of trade barriers to foster cooperation

complex interdependence

Multiple channels connect societies beyond military force.

Immanuel Kant

One of the major Liberal theorists that focuses on perpetual peace through republics and federation.

Robert Keohane

One of the major Liberal theorists that focuses on neoliberal institutionalism; cooperation under anarchy.

Joseph Nye

One of the major Liberal theorists that focuses on soft power and complex interdependence.

social construction

International reality is shaped by ideas and interactions.