POLS207

who said ‘Politics is concerned with the authoritative allocation of value(s) in a society’

Easton

who said ‘Political endeavor seeks to bring about a maximum degree of change in the opposing group with a minimum of change in one’s own group’

deutsch

what are the three things politics always involve?

power, decisions, and conflict

three main dimensions of politics…

beliefs vs facts, winning vs losing, today vs tomorrow

belief:

things we consider to be true about politics

are beliefs often based on facts?

NO

how to distinguish belief from facts?

research who they are and whos talking; listen to what is being said and analyze the content

four main ‘bugs’ in our own thinking

confirmation bias, implicit bias, availability heuristic, and representative heuristic

confirmation bias:

when we interpret new info as supporting the beliefs or theories we already held, even when it does not

implicit bias

occurs when we subconsciously and automatically asctibe certain negative characteristics or behaviors to someone bc of the group to which we mentally assign them to

availability heuristic

mental shortcut our mind takes often that assumes the most recent and revisited info is the best to use for given decision

representative heuristic

mental shortcut that assumes that because someone or something is accurately described by characteristic Z, then they also have X and Y bc we always see those together

whats the today trap?

to prioritize immediate benefits over future investment

empirical data is ___

the basis as science begins with observations

transparent process-

science is a community effort in which trust is the most important

rules bases investigation-

rules are more important than results

independently confirmable-

experiment must be repeatable by others to be trusted

falsifiable-

all data and results always has more to discover

reliability:

consistency of results from repeatable measures

validity:

acceptability of measure as pertinent to the question being asked

why are social sciences hard to measure?

dealing with humans- human error, hard to replicate and complex

why is demographic data hard to capture?

expensive, limited number of data categories, updates are spread across time

count:

involves counting things; population, pounds

rate:

one count measure divided by second count measure; mph

composite:

measure that has been built or composed from other measures— used when you cannot directly observe what they want to measure— mathematically combine count and rate

what does a heat map do?

depicts variations in single measurement

strengths of a heat map

single variable makes interpretations clear and spatial pattern can be recognized

weaknesses of heat map

binning can cause lack of detail in data and skew interpretations when decreasing number of bins

correlation is a measure of __ __

empirical relationship

correlation:

Relationship or non-relationship between observable characteristics of two different objects of investigation

two variables are empirically related only if the ‘r’ coefficient meets or beats the threshold of

.3 or -.3

look out for three major things on scatterplots…

starting points, break in scales, increment sizing

what word should you be cautious about giving wrong information?

average… is it mean or typical

current year money includes inflation effects which means…

inflation changes the money year to year and is the general rise of goods and services

fixed year money…

leaves out inflation effects and shows across years

empirical relationships are all about…

numerical part of measurements

__ is a possible ecplanation of how or why a pattern exists in an empirical relationship

causation

__ is factual, determined by calculations using observable measures of data

correlation

__ is theoretical; hypothesis of inference as to how and why empirical relationship exists

causation

causation has two perquisites-

correlation and mechanism (including directionality and time sequence)

when an empirical relationship is correlated but not causal its…

spurious

concept of political culture

a shared framework of values, beliefs, and habits of behavior in regard to government and politics

why does tx have a distinctive political culture?

the size and isolation until 20th century AND long held dislike of being told what to do

texas unmistakeable conservatism:

shared experiences with other southern states of slavery, defeat in civil war, postwar occupation, and continued denial of full citizenship rights to african americans

texas extreme individualism:

derived from reality and myth of living on frontier

who is daniel elazar?

political scientist who lived 1934-1999 and published his work for causal theory for why different geographic regions of US held uniform political ideologies

theories in science…

are not proofs, ideas that express a specific causal mechanism

elazars moralistic classification

“gov is a positive force for good”

government advances the public interests and is positive—> emphazies the commonwealth; citizen job to serve in politics

elazars traditionalistic classification

‘elite image is all that matters’ govs purpose is utilitarian- serve elite who creates it to serve them; maintain social order and econ hierarchy

politicians come from societies elite

how is texas traditionalistic?

long history of one party rule, lower turnout vote, social and econ conservatism

how is texas individualistic?

strong support of private business, opposition to big government, faith in ind initiatives

public goods bring three certain prereqs that are incompatible with private business

users can get benefits for free without contribution, good of groups is not good of each member, consumption by one does not reduce the benefit available for others

the accepted purposes of government today

maintain order- est law to preserve life and property

provide public goods- benefits and services for everyone, benefit market

promote equality- help the poor

totalitarianism:

gov has unlimited power (nazi)

anarchy

no power (no government)

extreme socialism:

government owns basic goods and services provided to members of the society

extreme capitalism:

ind own basic goods and services to members of the society, do with them as they please

role of gov in society

social freedom- place high value on ind liberties even at expense of having orderly society

social order- prioritizes public stability nad decent above ind freedom

being conservative means-

high value social order and econ efficiency; expecting gov power must regulate social choices… NOT regulate econ choices; econ inequlaity as natural consequence in human ability

being liberal means-

high value social freedom and econ equality; gov should NOT restrict social choices but intervene to promote ind welfare; value private property but only to a point

being libertarian means-

value social freedom and econ efficiency, emphasize autonomy of ind and minimal rold of gov; NOT wanting anarchy but minimal intervention of gov

being populist means-

highly valuing gov intervention in economy to benefit average citizen; not being anti capitalist bit not trusting elites, accepting of many assumptions of liberalism

texas brand of conservatism does what?

minimizes social role of gov and stresses individualism

social darwinism in texas political culture

ind who prosper and rise to the top are worthy and deserving and it shows in how texas thinks of social and econ issues

(Pseudo) laissez-faire economic doctrine combines with Social Darwinism to produce a trickle-down theory of economic and social development—

“Everyone’s situation can be bettered by insuring that business flourishes”

increases business profits without direct political efforts to boost all ind prosperity