LEC 2 political science and the study of inst.

plato

• Plato’s distinction between rule by the one, the few, the many

• Plato was a metaphysician (study of what is real; am

  I the same person at 55 that I was at 5?) Plato posited

  an ideal world of which this one can only be an

  imitation.

• saw politics as the pursuit of human virtue

aristotle

• Aristotle’s distinction between oligarchy (rule by the

  rich few) vs. democracy (rule by the poor many).

• empiricist

• saw politics as the pursuit of human virtue

POLYBIUS

• Greek writer, member of the political aristocracy captured and taken to Rome after the Third Macedonian

  War (168 BCE).

  • Became a de facto tutor to Scipio Aemilianus destroyed Carthage (and, evidently, wept).

  • He was a sort of early Machiavelli (see below!) in that he was both ingratiating himself with the Romans, to

  keep his head attached to his body, and studying them, to understand their success.

polybius distinguished 3 types of rule

1. Monarchy (rule by one): The initial and most stable form, where a single virtuous ruler governs for the common good.

• Corrupt form: Tyranny (rule by one for personal gain).

2. Aristocracy (rule by a few): A government led by a group of the best and most virtuous citizens.

• Corrupt form: Oligarchy (rule by a few for their own interests).

3. Democracy (rule by the many): Governance by the people, with equality and participation

Polybius viewed politics as teoleological andd declinist…

the contemporary idea of progress:

1. Monarchy emerges from chaos, as a strong leader establishes order.

2. Over time, monarchy degenerates into corrupt tyranny.

3. Tyranny is overthrown, and aristocracy emerges as a group of elites

governing based on merit.

4. Aristocracy degenerates into oligarchy as the elites serve their own

interests (Lord Acton’s dictum).

5. Oligarchy collapses, democracy emerges

6. Democracy degenerates into mob rule

IN COMES ROME and broke the cycle

Attributed the success of

Rome to its political institutions.

• Through trial and error, the

Romans had achieved stability,

prosperity, and expansion

through their “Mixed

Constitution”:

Rome’s mixed consitution

1. The CONSULS, who had full military

control; could summon assemblies of the

people; and could give orders to everyone

except the plebian tribunes. This was the

MONARCHICAL element.

2. The SENATE, which oversaw law and

security and controlled the finances. This

was the ARISTOCRATIC element.

3. The people via multiple assemblies. This

was the DEMOCRATIC element

CONSULS

all had power; none could prevail. Consuls

made war, but they had to be elected by the

people and needed Senate funding.

SENATE

The Senate decided if a successful general was

rewarded, and the people voted on any treaty

imposed on a conquered power.

This powerful idea of checks and balances is

still with us; the basis of the US political

system.

Machiavelli

• Was the author of value-free political science.

• Rejected the ancient claim that political

institutions should contribute to virtue; rather, virtues

are only such if they contribute to order; that which

is otherwise vicious and cruel can be rendered just if

it brings order out of chaos.

when did poli sci discipline emerge

19th and 20th century

• Karl Marx : efforts to uncover the economic laws that

drive history.

• Max Weber (next week) formalized the study of

bureaucracy and the broader state.

• Herbert Baxter Adams took a degree in the subject

from Heidelberg in 1876 and founded Johns Hopkins

Studies in Historical and Political Science; later

became the Chair of History and Political Science.

• Columbia opened the first Department of Political

Science in 1880.

•

postwar poli sci

Discipline took off on the back of

American funding.

 Reaction to the past: failure of

scholarship to anticipate and

prevent fascism, the two world

wars, and the enslavement of

Eastern Europe.

 ….and the future: the Cold War

and the threat of a nuclear

holocaust.

single politics vs COMPARATIVE politics

Single-case studies immerse you in the history,

institutions, culture, and economics of one country.

 Advantage: extensive in-depth knowledge, a sense of

how the parts relate to the whole.

 Disadvantage: tendency to treat as exceptional the

common or at least general.

 Comparative studies allow you to generalize; the more

cases in which X (a stagnant economy) explains y

(electoral failure), the closer you are to a generalizable

truth about politics.

 Disadvantage: tendency to ignore specificity, to pick the

facts to fit the theory.

 General move to comparative politics, tempered by

nationalism

qualitative vs quantitative

Qualitative vs. Quantitative. Qualitative studies tend to look at 2-3 cases (small ‘n’), quantitative

many cases (large ‘n’).

inductive vs deductive

inductive:

 Working with the ‘data’ – that is, learning about the details of the cases – and drawing conclusions

and even building theories from them.

 Deductive:

 Coming up with arguments, theories, ‘hypotheses’ which are then applied to (or ‘tested against’)

the evidence.

 Both are legitimate, and deductive work has the great advantage of guiding your research.

 Just be prepared to adjust or abandon your argument/theory/hypothesis if the evidence doesn’t

support it/them

problems of comparative work and essay writing

1. The ease of confusing cause and effect

(or independent and dependent variables):

 Low-skilled immigration leads to low wages,

when in fact low-skilled immigration is the

product of low wages.

 2. Selection bias

 Cherry-picking the evidence.

 3. Regional bias and excessive focus on

Western Europe (and even Britain, France, and

Germany).

 Should we compare, say, South Africa and

Germany? Or Thailand and the US?

 4. Limited information + few cases

 Two hundred countries at most

MORE problems w essays

Multicausality

 [revolution might be a function of too much repression, too

little repression, poverty, a burst of economic growth,

drought/climate change, incompetence, too little education,

too much education, demagoguery, a leader’s illness, etc.].

Revolutions occurred in both poor, unequal, Russia and

wealthy, increasingly educated Iran.

 6. Endogeneity

 factors are both the cause and effect of each other.

 Low levels of education lead to anti-science sentiment, and

anti-science sentiment leads to low levels of education.

 Thus, problems of cause and effect, selection bias, regional

bias, limited information, multicausality, and endogeneity.

democratic regimes

Democracy comes from Demos or

rule by the people.

 Different institutional arrangements –

different regimes – are ways of

defining, limiting and enabling power.

 They are different ways of translating

the public will into concrete policies.

does the expert always know best?

No. The problem is referenda, not popular

opinion as such:

 Voters rarely vote on the question; rather,

they express broader frustrations.

 Absence of accountability means that

referenda are highly susceptible to

misinformation.

 And even more susceptible to money:

California story.

 2020: supporters of California’s Proposition

22 spent 204 million; opponents 20 million.

Vote: 59% to 41%

delegate, trustee, and parliament

Delegate: elected officials are errand boys who do

what they are told by their electors.

 Trustee: a person who over the course of her

mandate exercises their judgment and is, in turn,

judged for it at the next election:

 Parliament is “a deliberative assembly of one nation,

with one interest, that of the whole… You choose a

member, indeed; but when you have chosen him he

is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of

Parliament.”



political parties

They organize a mass of opinions, ideas, and

policy options into coherent choices.

 The stronger the political parties are, the

more coherent and effective government is,

but the weaker the individual representative;

this is an essential trade-off.



legislature

Branch charged with making

and debating laws; in the idealized Burkean

version, it is where great issues of the day

are debated

executive

carries out the laws of the state (‘executes’ them).

 Is confusing and tension-ridden. What does this mean exactly?

 A President is hardly closing nightclubs, delivering the post, or guarding

the borders.

 Rather: the civil service is responsible for the daily implementation of

laws.

 Generally organized functionally: interior, foreign affairs, health etc. And

overseen by Cabinet ministers either purely appointed (United States) or

appointed among the elected (most liberal democracies).

3 SYSTEMS

1. Presidential: separate election of the

President and the Parliament (US,

Turkey, Brazil and most Latin American

countries, Afghanistan (2004- 2021,

Zimbabwe, Nigeria).

2. Semi-Presidential systems: Direct

election of the President, but Cabinet

governed by the PM (France, Poland,

Taiwan, Sri Lanka Mali).

3. President is also the Head of State, a

figure that is somehow meant to be

both of and above politics

parliamentary systems

Parliamentary systems (UK, Germany and most

European countries, Australia, New Zealand, India).

 Most common and most confusing because…

 The executive emerges from the legislature.

 Divide between constitutional monarchies (Canada,

Sweden, Australia) and parliamentary republics

(Germany, India).

 Can tend toward what one observer called an ‘elected

dictatorship,’ but that depends on the party system.

 Different electoral systems produce different party

systems with contrasting degrees of centralization