PoliSci Week 1

What were the focus points of political sociology between 1940 till now, name the four periods.

1940-50 → Psycho Analysis (Personality traits)
1950-60 → Behavioralism (Public opinion)
1980-90 → Cognitive approaches (Political elites decision making)
2000s → Emotions (Focus mass public)

Give the four different views on politics

1. As an Art

2. As public space

3. As a proces

4. As power

(APPP)

What is politics as an art?

Follows politics via the official institutions. Most narrow

What is politics as a public space?

Private actors can act as public actors in some situations. More broad

What is politics as a process?

Politics is any discussion over disagreement/allocation in wider groups. (However cannot be over personal affairs)

What is politics as a power?

Everything is political = Personal affairs. (Also includes feminist perspective)

What two critiques does politics as power have?

1. Other views are overlooking people

2. Everyday life does have political power (power dynamics)

What is a ‘Essentially contested concept’

Concept that has multiple views on it, which are all legitimate that give different understanding of the concept

What are the mutual agreements found for the ECC politics?

1. Collective activity

2. Making decisions

3. Uneven distribution

4. Decisions are binding

Give the definition for ‘paradigm’

“Set of ideas and believes which provide a framework or model which research can follow”

Give the 4 features of ‘positivism’

1. Based on empirical observations

2. Uses ‘hard’ quantitive data.

3. Prefers ‘research' method/steps’ as much as possible

4. For social phenomena research, research method not feasible/ethical.

Give the three features of Interpretivism

1. Focus on phenomena in their context

2. Uses qualitative data

3. Uses ‘Grounded Theory’ → Theories are direct from data, analyzing e.g. interviews and observations

What is ontology?

Ontology views the world as it exists

What paradigms have a view on ontology?

Positivism and Interpretivism

What is the positivist view on ontology called and its view?

Foundationalist ontology → World exists independently from our knowledge on it. (REAL WORLD)

What is the interpretivism view on ontology called and its view?

Anti-Foundationalist ontology → Word is (socially) constructed. Means that relations/beliefs/ etc are relative and dependent on world view.

What is epistemology?

How can we learn from this world?

What are 4 things about positivist view on epistemology?

1. Observations are objective.

2. Observators are directly observable (facts)

3. Uses scientific method

4. Detached from scholars

What are 3 things about interpretivist view on epistemology?

1. Observations are subjective

2. Relations dependent on interpretation on them

3. Not detached from scholars.