What is politics?

core problem in defining politics

Deciding what counts as 'political' activity and where to draw its boundaries

two contrasting views of politics

Everyday pejorative view (corruption, conflict) vs. Rousseau & Mill's view of participation as valuable

Why are conflict and scarcity central to politics?

Societies have diverse interests and limited resources, so a mechanism is needed to make and enforce collective decisions

Who defined politics as "who gets what, when and how"?

Harold Lasswell; focuses on distribution of resources and benefits

How was politics mainly studied before the 19th century?

As political philosophy asking what the good life is and what political order it requires

What long term divide does this section highlight?

Tension between prioritizing liberty vs. prioritizing equality

What is Gamble's "pessimistic acceptance" about modern politics?

That bureaucracy, technology and the global market have 'disenchanted' the world so people can no longer really change it; politics becomes superficial and fate‑like

How does globalisation affect the "space for politics"?

Globalization is said to end real national autonomy and leave governments controlled by global economic forces, so the space for meaningful political choice seems to shrink

What "crisis of politics" is linked to this pessimistic?

Declining political participation and the rise of 'anti‑politics' attitudes that see politicians and political institutions as ineffective or untrustworthy

How do the authors respond to Gamble's pessimistic view?

They argue it is too pessimistic: there are still constraints but some stem from human choices, and human agency can still shape outcomes despite global market pressures and technology

What key tension about human agency does the section end with?

The tension between impersonal global forces and human will; politics is about recognizing and tackling this tension so that outcomes are not simply treated as fate

On what basic condition is politics usually predicted?

On the existence of competing interests and values in any reasonably complex society

Why do most commentators in this chapter see politics as inevitable?

Because all societies contain differences of values and interests that must be handled somehow

What does the "end of ideology" thesis claim about values?

the ideological conflict has faded and liberal democratic values now dominate worldwide

how does the chapter evaluate the end-of-ideology thesis?

It argues the thesis exaggerates both the decline of ideological conflict and the dominance of liberal democratic values

What 2 main types of questions do students of politics ask about decisions

Which values and interests decisions should serve (e.g. justice, liberty, whose interests) and who makes or ought to make those decisions (one, few, many, democratic or not)

which 2 extra ideas are central for students of politics?

Aristotle's classification of political systems by number of rulers and whose interests they serve, and the distinction between power (ability to coerce) and authority (legitimate power accepted by the ruled)

how is the state described in terms of sovereignty and political obligation?

the state is the supreme law-making authority within a territory, with power over life and death, and political theory asks why we should obey it and whether we owe obedience to any state or only some

what is the distinction between the state and civil society?

The state includes government plus bureaucracies, courts, military and police, while civil society covers non‑governmental institutions such as pressure groups, businesses, trade unions and other associations linking individuals and the state

how is "civil society" defined and which thinker is highlighted?

Civil society is a range of private institutions and interest groups between individual and state; Hegel is cited for distinguishing family, civil society and state as levels of social integration

what contrast is drawn between narrow and broad views of the political?

"A narrow view ties politics mainly to the state and public realm, while a broad view includes politics in groups below the state (families, workplaces, communities) and above it (supranational and global levels)

How do globalisation and governance reshape where politics happens?

Globalization increases interdependence so that international and transnational relations, non‑state actors and global issues become central, and the term 'governance' is used to capture decision‑making that involves markets, interest groups and organizations beyond formal government

Which ideological traditions broaden the boundaries of politics and how?

Radical feminists see power in personal and family relations ('the personal is political'), Marxists focus on domination in the economic realm, some Islamic thought extends political prescriptions across social life, and green theorists argue politics should encompass the natural world and even non‑human animals

how does Bernard Crick view politics and what problem is it meant to solve?

Crick sees politics as a great and civilizing human activity whose preferable function is to resolve conflicts and the problem of order through peaceful compromise and consensus, rather than violence or coercion

How does Crick contrast politics with tyranny and oligarchy?

Tyranny and oligarchy coerce opponents, whereas genuine politics incorporates competing groups, spreads power widely, and seeks conciliation so that no single group can simply impose its will

What do Flinders and Stoker argue about public disappointment with politics?

They claim expectations of politics are unrealistically high; democratic politics is inevitably messy, ambiguous and 'designed to disappoint', yet still superior to other forms of rule

What is the main criticism of defining politics only in terms of consensus?

If politics is limited to agreement and compromise, it ignores how force, coercion and even war can be continuations of politics by other means, so conflict must also be seen as political.

What common theme about politics emerges from the quotes by Dahl and by Held and Leftwich?

Both stress that politics is about persistent patterns of human relationships involving control, influence, power or authority, and about how power over resources is distributed and used across public and private life

According to Stoker, what is distinctive about political outcomes?

They are rarely neat or final; compromise and reconciliation produce outcomes that are often messy, ambiguous and never completely settled

where and with whom does the textbook trace the study of politics back to, and when did it become an independent academic discipline?

It traces it to fifth‑century BC Greece with Plato and Aristotle, but says politics only became a separate university discipline in the early twentieth century, having previously sat under law, philosophy and history

which 2 associations marks he professionalisation of political science and when were they founded?

The American Political Science Association (APSA) in 1903 and the UK Political Studies Association (PSA) in 1950

what traditional threefold distinction structures the teaching of politics in this book?

The study of political ideas/theory, the study of political institutions and processes within states, and the study of relations between states (international politics)

give an example of what each of the 3 areas of political study can cover

Political ideas: key thinkers and ideologies; institutions and processes: institutions of a single state, electoral politics or public administration; relations between states: roles of states and supranational actors, historically or today

what is normative analysis in political science and what kind of questions does it ask?

Normative analysis is a value‑focused approach that asks what is good, better or more desirable and recommends what we ought to want, e.g. why and when we should value freedom, democracy or equality, or obey the state

What is positivism in political analysis, and which thinkers are associated with it?

Positivism holds that science should study only observable phenomena, sharply separating fact and value; in politics it meant applying natural‑science methods to social life, linked to Auguste Comte and, in its logical form, to the Vienna Circle, who treated only empirically verifiable or analytic statements as meaningful

give 2 reasons mentioned for the mid 20th century decline of normative political analysis

Intellectually, behaviouralism and empirical political science became dominant, treating value talk about the 'good society' as unscientific; politically, growing consensus politics and prosperity reduced interest in justifying alternative political orders

How did John Rawls's work influence the revival of normative political philosophy?

Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) became a central example of 'ideal theory', renewing interest in systematic accounts of justice and the good society, even though later theorists stressed the need to connect such principles to the non‑ideal real world.

what problem do logical positivists highlight about normative statements, and how does the text respond?

Logical positivists see value claims as meaningless because an 'ought' cannot be derived from an 'is'; the text accepts that empirical facts alone cannot settle moral questions but argues this does not make normative evaluation pointless, since people share some values and can criticise unreasonable conceptions of the good

how do later philosophers suggest we can still judge between competing political and moral values?

Dworkin argues many theories share an underlying commitment to human equality; Nagel and others claim beliefs can be criticized for logical and evidential defects; Arneson notes that setting the bar of certainty too high would block any policy choice, so practical reasoning must proceed without absolute proof

what is empirical analysis in politics and what question does it try to answer?

Empirical analysis studies observable political phenomena in the real world to establish what is, rather than what ought to be, often using methods borrowed from the natural sciences

what is semantic analysis in political studies and why is it important?

Semantic analysis clarifies the meaning of key political concepts such as democracy or freedom; because many such terms are vague or contested, defining them carefully is a crucial starting point for serious analysis

How are normative, empirical and semantic analyses related?

They are not independent: empirical knowledge can inform normative claims, normative assumptions guide what is studied empirically, and semantic clarification underpins both by specifying what concepts mean

from a positivist perspective, how is empirical political theory distinguished from normative theory?

Empirical theory generates testable hypotheses about political phenomena, while normative theory judges which political goals or frameworks (e.g. market economy vs democratic socialism) are desirable

What is the comparative method and why is it central to empirical political analysis?

It systematically compares political institutions and processes across different countries or historical periods to identify general patterns and test hypotheses about how variables like regime type or electoral system affect outcomes

What aim does the textbook set for comparing institutions in developed and developing worlds?

It wants students to use consistent tools to analyse institutions everywhere so they can see both similarities and differences in how states, parties and civil society operate, and assess their respective strengths and weaknesses.

how does the chapter distinguish deductive from inductive approaches in empirical political analysis?

Deductive approaches (e.g. rational choice) start from general assumptions or principles about behaviour and deduce hypotheses to test; inductive approaches (e.g. behaviouralism) begin with observations and then build generalizations from the data.

what are the core assumptions of rational choice theory in politics and where is it applied?

It assumes individuals are rational utility‑maximizers who choose actions that best serve their interests, and is used in game‑theoretic models of collective action, voting, party competition and interest‑group behaviour

what main criticism is made of the deductive rational-choice approach?

Its starting assumptions about human behaviour can be oversimplified or unrealistic, and the approach often generates many hypotheses but relatively little strong empirical confirmation

What is behaviouralism in political science and what does it emphasize?

Behaviouralism, especially influential in the USA after 1945, imports scientific methods into politics, seeks objective measurement of observable behaviour (like voting), and aims to derive generalizations from quantifiable data while bracketing values.

What two weaknesses of the inductive/behaviouralist method are highlighted?

It can prioritize data‑gathering over theory‑building, and often produces correlations rather than genuine causal explanations—for example, showing class and voting are linked without explaining why

According to the key points, what are the three main approaches in political analysis and how does empirical work relate to the others?

Political analysis uses empirical, normative and semantic approaches; empirical work commonly employs inductive or deductive reasoning, but it both relies on and feeds back into normative and conceptual (semantic) analysis

In what sense is politics a science and what would a stricter definition require?

In a loose sense politics is scientific when it offers ordered knowledge based on systematic enquiry; a stricter view would demand applying natural‑science methods to politics to produce neutral, objective knowledge

what 2 main challenges are raised against treating politics as fully scientific?

First, doubts about whether natural‑science methods can be transferred to a social science dealing with conscious, unpredictable humans; second, deeper doubts about whether any truly value‑free science is possible at all

what do "ontology" and "epistemology" mean, and how do they relate to views of political science?

Ontology concerns what exists—whether there is an objective political reality 'out there'—while epistemology concerns how we can know it; positivists assume a discoverable reality, whereas interpretivists stress that political 'reality' is partly constructed by human meanings

how do interpretivist scholars challenge behavioural and rational-choice approaches?

They reject the idea of an objective political reality waiting to be discovered and instead argue that we should study the meanings actors create, implying that a value‑free, natural‑science style political science is impossible

what are the key points summarised about the scientific status of politics?

Behaviouralists claim politics can match the rigour of natural science, but critics question both the transfer of methods to social life and the broader assumption that the scientific enterprise itself is unproblematic

accordingf to Lipset and Rokkan's influential 1967 work "party systems and voter alignments", what are the 4 main lasting divisions in society that shape political behaviour?

Center‑Periphery (state vs regions/minorities seeking autonomy, e.g. Catalonia); Church‑State (religious vs secular power over education and public life); Rural‑Urban (economic and value differences between countryside and cities during industrialization); Class/Owner‑Worker (elites vs working class over labor rights and wealth distribution)

What distinction does the slide make between conflict regulation and cooperation in politics?

While politics regulates conflict and channels it peacefully, most of the time politics is actually about cooperation—collective action to achieve goals that would otherwise be impossible to obtain

What does 'teatralization of politics' mean as described in the slides?

The conflict seen on TV and in media is mostly a dramatized presentation ('teatralization') of politics rather than the main reality; politics is largely about peaceful cooperation and regulation.

How do the slides distinguish between narrow and wide definitions of what counts as 'the realm of politics'?

Narrow definition: politics is confined to government and its three powers (executive, legislative, judicial); wide definition: politics exists in social relations anywhere power is exercised, e.g. in patriarchal family structures

According to the slides, when does a political system have legitimacy, and what is Weber's famous claim about the state?

Legitimacy occurs when a system rules with authority (not just power or coercion); Weber claimed the state has 'monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force in enforcing its order within a given territorial area', but all three elements (power, authority, coercion) are necessary even in democracies.