Comparative Politics: Order, Rules, and Violence
Human Development and Economic Indicators
Development vs. Material Well-Being:
Economic development was historically analyzed strictly through Gross Domestic Product () per capita.
Broader definitions of human development focus on expanding real freedoms and unleashing individual human potential.
Key elements of human development include guaranteed access to education (schooling) and comprehensive healthcare services.
Standard measures of human development remain heavily focused on material well-being, though traditional metrics miss vital non-material qualitative factors.
Gross Domestic Product at Purchasing Power Parity ():
Measuring economy size strictly via standard international currency conversion creates distortion because local purchasing power varies drastically between nations (e.g., a single dollar yields far more goods and services in India than in Western nations).
adjusts for national price level differences, measuring national output per capita relative to actual local purchasing capability.
Adjusting for purchasing power parity demonstrates that China's real economic output () is substantially larger than suggested by unadjusted nominal dollar metrics.
Unpredictability and Navigation: The Medellín Driving Story
Contrast Between Planned and Disrupted Routes:
Travel took place in May in a medicine during an intense period of socio-political upheaval.
Comparison of two distinct routes taken while driving Danny to a friend's house:
The Blue Line: The standard, expected, predetermined navigation route following conventional streets and traffic rules.
The Red Line: The actual erratic route driven, marked by extreme detours, unexpected right-angle sharp turns, and continuing straight past designated turns.
Dynamics of Unpredictable Roadblock Disruptions:
Blockages and street barricades appeared spontaneously without advance warning or predictable patterns.
Navigating required continuous, real-time decision-making on the spot while actively driving.
Disruption patterns were highly volatile: barricades popped up and disappeared off and on within a -minute window, meaning a route drawn minutes later would show an entirely different path.
The experience highlights the psychological and structural shift between an ordered system and an unpredictable, disrupted environment.
Core Objectives of Study
Three Central Pedagogical Goals:
Goal : Explicitly define the concepts of order and violence.
Goal : Establish the precise relationships that exist between order and violence.
Goal : Identify key actors that contribute to the production and maintenance of social orders (setting up a -week examination of distinct order-creating entities).
Rules, Norms, and Expectations
Classroom Experiment on Social Norms:
Analysis of a photograph showing a professor standing directly on top of a classroom desk while delivering a lecture.
The image was captured by a student and transformed into a digital sticker that circulated widely across messaging platforms before eventually reaching the instructor.
Student reactions included shock, confusion, photo-taking, and widespread laughter driven by the violation of unspoken expectations.
Formal Rules vs. Informal Social Norms:
Written codes and institutional regulations contain no explicit rule prohibiting a professor from standing on a table during a lecture.
Informal rules, social norms, and implicit common sense dictate expected standards of appropriate behavior in social interactions.
Defying unwritten conventions disrupts expected social order, prompting immediate social feedback and highlighting the baseline rules governing a space.
Rule-Following and Predictability in Daily Life:
Predictable traffic flows rely on strict adherence to traffic rules and signals (e.g., stopping at red lights and moving on green lights).
Functioning rules and norms create stable expectations regarding individual behavior and the actions of others.
Defining Social Order and Disorder
Context of Protests and Barricades:
Disruptions occurred during a severe -month cycle of intense protests (within a broader to month protest movement).
Street blockages varied in nature, ranging from organized marching demonstrations to burning barricades reminiscent of the -century Paris Commune.
Conceptual Definition of Order:
Social order is defined as the conditional predictability of social life and human interaction.
Order enables individuals to navigate daily life reflexively without needing to calculate every immediate step or action.
Conceptual Definition of Disorder:
Disorder is defined as the total loss of social predictability.
Experiencing disorder is profoundly disturbing because individuals cannot anticipate others' actions, forcing them to make continuous real-time assessments and decisions for every step taken.
Violence and Order: Ethnographic Case Study in São Paulo
Fieldwork Narrative (Scholarship in São Paulo, Brazil):
Case study documenting governance and social interactions in a community in São Paulo, Brazil.
Scenario Step (Initial Harassment): A group of local children/teenagers repeatedly harassed a resident's children and stole their lunch money.
Scenario Step (Recourse to Formal Authority): The mother reported the youths' illegal actions directly to the local police department.
Scenario Step (Gang Threat): The local drug gang controlling the area responded by threatening to forcibly remove and expel the mother from her home for involving law enforcement.
Scenario Step (Direct Confrontation): The woman confronted the drug gang directly, explaining that she contacted law enforcement because the youths were stealing her children's money.
Scenario Step (Informal Rule Imposition): The drug gang acknowledged that theft was unacceptable, but forbade future police contact, stating: "Do not go to the police again. Call us. We will solve it."
Scenario Step (Informal Enforcement): The gang confronted the offending youths and issued an explicit threat of physical force: "Stop it because next time we won't be talking."
Analytical Framework: Functions of Violence and Plural Orders
Dual Purpose of Observable Violence:
Order-Sustaining Violence:
Used by non-state actors (e.g., drug gangs) to enforce informal societal rules (e.g., prohibiting theft within the community and banning communication with police).
Employs fear and coercion to maintain a predictable, local social order.
Order-Defying Violence:
Represented by the youths harassing children and stealing money.
Disrupts and defies both formal state laws and local informal governance rules without establishing alternative order.
Plurality of Orders and Parallel Governance:
In spaces where state presence has partially retreated, non-state criminal groups assume governance functions to regulate community behavior and protect their business interests.
Residents are forced to navigate competing governance systems: the formal legal order (enforced by state police) versus the informal localized order (enforced by criminal gangs).
Theoretical Conclusion on Order and Violence:
Social order is not defined by the absolute absence of violence.
Violence is an instrument that exists within both ordered systems (acting as a mechanism for rule enforcement) and disordered systems (acting as a disruptive force).
Administrative Notes
Class Schedule Notice:
No classes will be held on the upcoming Monday and Wednesday.