Chapter 1 & 2 (CPO2001 Exam 1)

Introduction | Monday, January 13th

• Politics: a struggle in any group for power that will give a person or people the ability to make decisions for the larger group, Can be found anywhere there is an organization.

• Power: the ability to influence others or impose one’s will over them.

• Comparative politics: the study of this struggle for power across countries.

  • Important to separate ideals from objective concepts.

• Inductive reasoning: generalizing from a single case to a general rule. AKA case study approach.

• Deductive reasoning: inferring from general rule to a single case. AKA comparative approach.

  • Correlation does not mean causation.

• Limits of the comparative method:

  • Difficult to ‘control’ variables.

  • Limited number of cases (countries, wars, transitions)

  • Barriers to conducting research (languages, access)

  • Selection bias can skew research and results (which cases, events, actors)

  • Endogeneity: difficulty of determining what is cause and what is effect (new take on the chicken and the egg problem).

• How should research be gathered?

  • Quantitative method: gather numerical data for statistical analysis, looking for patterns and testing ideas.

  • Qualitative method: carry out intensive study of cases through archival research, interviews.

Chapter 1 | Wednesday, January 15th

• Institutions: organizations or patterns of activity that are self-perpetuating and value for their own sake.

  • These are embedded in people’s lives as legitimate norms or values.

  • They are rules, norms, and values that give meaning to our actions.

  • Politics is full of institutions such as the army and police, legislature, and taxation.

    • They do not require a physical entity.

• Institutions set the stage for political behavior:

  • They generate norms and values.

  • Allow for certain kinds of political activity and not others.

  • How they are constructed will shape how politics unfolds.

  • Integrates early approaches to the study of political science, but also works to emphasize explanations, not just description.

  • Institutions must balance efficiency and inclusion (representativeness).

• Lichbach and Zuckerman - Research Traditions and Theory

  • Focus

    • Understanding through comparison

    • Broad political phenomena - even if studied within a specific case

    • Tangible, pragmatic, not theoretical or utopian

  • Goals

    • Develop understandings of core social phenomena

    • Explicit comparisons (within and between cases)

    • Understandings that lead to solutions (normatively valued outcomes)

  • Constraints

    • Core issues are modern, but cases may be historical

    • Scientific method with limited capacity for experiments

    • Case selection, bias, access to information

  • Rational choice

    • Individual rationality - generalizability

    • Large N, statistics, modeling

    • Focused on the reason for individual behavior -> outcomes

  • Culturalism

    • Context driven - case oriented

    • Thick description, ethnography, constructivist (systems of meaning)

    • Focused on the cultural rules and norms that structure behavior

  • Structuralism

    • Institutional constraints - middle ground

    • Mixed methods, case studies, large N, institutionalist

    • Focused on the relations between and within structures/institutions

• King, Keohane & Verba - The Science in Social Science

  • Four features of science:

    • The goal is inference (generalizability)

    • The procedures are public (reliability and replicability)

    • The conclusions are uncertain (outcome is unknown)

    • The content is the method (science is the process)

  • Challenges of the scientific approach

    • Complexity

      • Few events occur in isolation

      • Not all aspects that impact and event can be controlled (or controlled for)

    • Rarity 

      • The most interesting events are often infrequent (ex: revolutions)

      • Comparison is made more difficult

Chapter 1 | Friday, January 17th

• Comparing states:

  • Legitimacy:

    • Traditional: the state is obeyed because of tradition

    • Rational-legal: the state is obeyed because of the laws (ex. The UK, US)

    • Charismatic: the state is obeyed because of the charisma of the leader

• State strength:

  • Strong: can defend authority internally and externally

  • Weak: cannot defend against internal or external threats (ex. Haiti, Iran, North Korea)

  • Failed: complete loss of power

• Power types:

  • Federal: power is divided between the central state and regions

  • Unitary: power is retained in the capitol (but can be devolved, or handed down to lower levels).

• Branches of government:

  • Executive: carries out the laws of the states. Consists of a head of states (represents the people) and heads of government (executes policy).

    • Types of executives:

      • Presidential system: head of government and head of state are combined, and the president is elected by voters.

      • Parliamentary system: head of government and head of state are different people, with a Prime Minister (head of government) elected from within the legislature. Head of state has more symbolic power, while the head of government covers most official business.

      • Semi-presidential system: Both a prime minister approved by legislature and directly elected president. Dual executives share power.

  • Legislature: makes laws. Can be unicameral or bicameral.

  • Judiciary: dispenses justice. The high court can have an abstract (can rule without a legal case coming forward) or concrete review (must rule on an existing court case, like the US).

• Electoral systems:

  • Electoral districts and representations:

    • Proportional representation (PR): goes along with multi-member districts (MMD), in which more than one seat is contested in each district, and you vote for a party rather than a person.

    • Single member districts: there is one representative per district, and voters vote for candidates.

      • Mixed system may use multimember districts for some seats and single member districts for others (ex. Germany).

  • Plurality vs. majority elections:

    • Plurality elections (also known as first past the post or FPTP): the person with the plurality (most votes) wins, whether or not it’s 50%.

    • Majoritarian elections: candidates only win with over 50% of the vote. GOes along with runoff elections or alternative ballot types (such as alternative vote).

• Comparing societies:

  • Ethnicity: the ascriptive (assigned at birth) attributes that make one group of people culturally distinct from others- such as language, religion, geographical regions, history, etc.

  • National identity: the extent to which people are bound together by common political aspirations such as sovereignty.

    • This can be found in the case of an established state, like an American national identity, or this can be found in the case of a region that is seeking independence and sovereignty, such as a Scottish national identity.

    • If a state is younger/less established, members are less likely to identify strongly with a national identity.

  • Citizenship: the formal relationship between a person and the state within which they live.

Ch 1 Book Notes

• Problems in comparative research

  • Controlling a large number of variables

  • Controlling for the interaction of variables (multicausality)

  • Limited number of cases to research

  • Limited access to information from cases

  • Uneven research across cases and regions

  • Cases selected on the basis of effect and not cause (selection bias)

  • Variables may be either cause or effect (endogeneity)

• The two world wars and the rise of the Cold War were a turning point in political science and comparative politics because: 1) universities started a movement focused on applying more rigorous methods to the study of human behavior 2) it was difficult to understand why certain things happened after the massive changes resulting from new countries forming, rising fascism, and the failure of democracy across many nations 3) the creation of nuclear weapons made understanding comparative politics a matter of survival 4) technological innovations such as computers

  • This development created a widespread belief that many social problems could be reframed as technical concerns and resolved through science.

• Modernization theory: holds that as societies developed, they would become capitalist democracies. 

  • The theory assumed that the US/other Western countries were the furthest ahead on this path and all other countries would “catch up” unless distracted by alternative systems such as communism.

• Behavioral revolution: the shift from a descriptive study of politics to one that emphasizes causality, explanation, and prediction; emphasizes the political behavior of individuals more than larger political structures and quantitative and qualitative methodology; modernization theory predominates.

• Major Thinkers in Comparative Politics

  • Aristotle (384–322 BCE): First separated the study of politics from that of philosophy; used the comparative method to study Greek city-states; in The Politics, conceived of an empirical study of politics with a practical purpose.

  • Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527): Often cited as the first modern political scientist because of his emphasis on statecraft and empirical knowledge; analyzed different political systems, believing the findings could be applied by statesmen; discussed his theories in The Prince.

  • Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679): Developed the notion of a “social contract,” whereby people surrender certain liberties in favor of order; advocated a powerful state in Leviathan.

  • John Locke (1632–1704): Argued that private property is essential to individual freedom and prosperity; advocated a weak state in Two Treatises of Government.

  • Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755): Studied government systems; advocated the separation of powers within government in The Spirit of Laws.

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78): Argued that citizens’ rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away by the state; influenced the development of civil rights; discussed these ideas in The Social Contract.

  • Karl Marx (1818–83): Elaborated a theory of economic development and inequality in Das Kapital; predicted the eventual collapse of capitalism and democracy.

  • Max Weber (1864–1920): Wrote widely on such topics as bureaucracy, forms of authority, and the impact of culture on economic and political development; developed many of these themes in Economy and Society