Summary political science

Lecture 1: 

This was largely an introduction to the field with no real information that you should know for the exams. 

Lecture 2: 

Terminology

• Analytical political theory: study of concepts, ideas and values who are used to describe and explain = conceptualizing 

• Political theory: a combination of analytical, empirical and normative theories 

• Normative political theory: How politics should be

• Normative political science: The use of theories about how politics should be

Empirical

• Facts

• Describe and explain

• observational analysis

Normative

• Values

• How it should be 

• prescribing and evaluation

• Argumentational analysis

Lijphart: 

Empirically descriptive:

• The Netherlands is a segmented but stable state.

Empirically explanatory:

• The Netherlands is stable because it has a consensus democracy

Normative prescribing:

• Segmented states should become a consensus democracy

Normative evaluated:

• Consensus democracy is better for stability than a competitive democracy. 

Lecture 3: ontology and epistemology

Discussion about how a closed and final a theory is 

• How do we look to reality and how do we cope with it

Philosophy of Science: philosophical research to assumptions, methods and results of scientific research. 

• Meta-theory: About the core of reality 

• Ontology: What is? What is knowable

• Epistemology: What ought to be? How can we know?

• Methodology: How can it be researched?

Ontology

• If a tree falls, and nobody sees or hears it, did it really fall down? 

• Theory about being 

• Is there a world outside of our experiences

• Material sense (gravity), social sense (culture), perceptions and beliefs

• Objectivism and constructivism

Epistemology

• What can we know? theories of knowledge

• What is knowledge? How do we receive knowledge of this world? Are there boundaries about what we can know?

• Positivism, interpretivism, (critical) realism

Objectivism:

• Objects are independent of our perceptions

• The world exists even without our knowledge

• Causality exists even without the human perception

Relativism:

• Reality differs from person to person 

• Reality isn’t discovered but is made 

• The world doesn’t have meaning without our perception, but it exists. 

• Neutrality doesn't exist in research (You use your own language and have bias towards outcomes)

Scientific positivism

• Scientists look objectively 

• Formulation of general rules that can predict outcomes. 

• Social laws are coherent to natural sciences. 

Hermeneutic

• To understand instead of explain. You have to interpret their vision and bias as well. 

• Double hermeneutic: you interpret the world including the knowledge you also have your own bias. 

• There is a social construct 

Critical realism 

• There is a world that can be discovered

• THe world is explainable and there are general laws which you can apply to it 

• Combinations of objectivism and constructivism

Lecture 4: behavioralism

Behavioralism

• Why do people behave the way they do 

• Why? (explanatory) 

• People (Individuals have the power over institutions)

• Behavior (empirical and observable)

Consists of:

• Ontology (objectivistic)

• Epistemology (positivistic)

• Methodology (privileges & quantitative methods)

A good theory consists of 

• The theory is on the inside coherent and consistent

• outside of it it is still consistent 

• Consistent with observation and falsifiable.

Lakatos:

• Not all assumptions have to be falsifiable. Not every assumption is able to be falsifiable. 

Lecture 5: rational choice

Has the same question as focus as behaviorism:

"Why do people behave the way they do?" 

• Methodological individualism

• Unitary actor assumption for collectives

The why is filled in by rational choice: The homo economicus chooses to their best interest. 

Homos economicus

• People base their choices on their own benefit

• Assumption: own benefit and rationality

Homos economicus has interests:

• Sees all options

• No change in decisions

• Transitive

Lecture 6: institutionalism

traditional institutionalism: origins in law departments

Institutions: formal political arrangements: government organizations, constitutions, legal systems 

looks like normative theories 

• Description

• Qualitative 

Traditional institutionalism: not concerned with defining their ontology. epistemology or methodology.

They were more busy defining law than explain 

ontology: Naive foundationalism, there is a world outside of our mind

Epistemology: didn’t see itself as a science

Methodology: Qualitative but not systematic: not applying statistics 

criticism of traditional institutionalism: 

• too much emphasis on formal rules and procedures (what about the people)

• too holistic (what about the parts within)

• Too much focus on government 

• Too static 

• Too descriptive 

• Lacking methodological rigor (where is the scientific method)

• Not critical enough of themselves (lack of objectivism)

1950s Political science timeline: old institutionalism > Behaviouralism > Rational choice theory > New institutionalism 2000s

What were institutions to:

• old institutionalists/behaviorists/rational choice scholars

  • Define ontology, epistemology, this is important, these are the assumptions

• Behaviouralist: aggregations of individual actors’ roles, and learned responses. Aggregation as a pile in which it doesn’t matter where 

• Rational choice: Accumulation of individual choices based on rationality, self-interest and utility-maximizing preferences. Accumulation will add up and solve a collective action problem.

• Old institutionalists: formal government organizations

New institutionalism:

• Interaction between institutions creates a structure and individual agents

• Interaction between institutions creates a structure and institutions agents

Lecture 7: Constructivism

Sociaal constructivism 

• Material or social meaning

• Giving interpretation and meaning to your surroundings. This forms your view of the word and not only causes it. 

• Behavior or reaction can be direct or indirect

• Can an institution influence your behavior? It is not about causality, but the trigger that forms your behavior or reaction

• Structure - Agency,  

• Are ideas, beliefs or interests  exogenous of indogenous?

Antifoundationalism is also called constructivism

Founders of constructivism:

• Max Weber

• Emile Durkheim 

Max Weber:

• Protestants thought people had a worldly call to improve themselves.

• Calvinists thought people had a fate and are doomed to it. 

Iron Cage of Capitalism

Almond & Verba 1963

• Behaviorist - positivist 

• Causale argumenten en correlaties

A post humean view of explanation

• Any mechanism involving rational choice obviously makes claims about meanings and perceptions 

• Wendt distinguishes causal and constitutive arguments (Why versus how/what?)

Lecture 8: feminism & Marxism

Patriarchy: the world is formed by a male view.

Feminist: someone who shares a common concern with women's unequal positiom in society, calling into question power relations between women and men traditionally defended as natural

According to them, the unequal position is not naturally but mostly socially created.

Feminists want to uncover the unequal sides and change them.

Feminist waves

• Wave 1: equal and legal constitutional rights

• Wave 2: more attention to workplace, family equality, domestic violence and reproductive rights

• Wave 3: critical of liberal feminism, draws attention to intersectionality, sex-positive

Women in politics:

• Historically, women were excluded from politics

• Just 15 HoS' and HoG's of 195 countries

• Also underrepresented in the study and institutes

Feminist critiques in malestream politifal science

• Fudging the footnotes (remarks without scientific data)

• Assuming male dominance

• Accepting masculinity as the political ideal

• Explaining political behavior on unexamined stereotypes of the roles of women

• Excluding what women have traditionally done from the definition and scope

The institutional turn

• Studying representation (descriptive and substantive

• Feminizing political parties

Marxism

Marx: capitalism = exploitation

• "Marx argued that capitalism was a mode of production  in which one class of people - the bourgeoisie or capitalist class - exploited another class of people - the proletariat or working class"

• The drive for profit would lead to ever more extreme exploitation, until the alienated proletariat rise up in socialisy revolution

• This requires class consciousness, created by factories which brought working class people together

Marx's materialism 

• The distribution of material power is starting point

• The economic base consists of: the mode of production  technologies and instruments, forces of production, and the social class relations which characterize the way in which goods are produced

• The economic base determines the superstructure of culture, ideology and politics

But: the working class is the consumer, without consumers capitalism doesn't stand so there is interdependence.

Mensheviks vs Bolsheviks

• Mensheviks: communism will win democratically

• Bolsheviks: communism will need a revolution

Lecture 9: research methods/design

We did a research cycle with one of the theories discussed earlier in the course. In our case behaviorism. The question was: what motivates people in the netherlands to protest against the decision of the supreme court in the United States about abortion? 

We made a selection of questions which could have an influence on the main question. This wasn’t part of the things we needed to know for the course. 

Lecture 10: The comparative method

I have never followed this lecture so it lacks in my summary 

Lecture 11: qualitative and quantitative methods

Which method should I use?

• Depends on topic/gap/research question

• Depends on ontology and epistemology of theoretical approach

• Depends on choices made at other stages

• Depends on resources: time, money, manpower, skills

Types of data:

• Data collection

• Data analysis

Quantitative: 

• Counting stuff

• Why, how much, how many?

• Experimental vs observational

• Data sources: attitudes, opinions, behaviors, content/text analysis, official statistics

Can numbers be quantified, are there enough/is it useful to use quantitative methods?

Qualitative:

• Describing stuff using language

• Why, what, how?

• The focus of qualitative methods in political science is on detailed, text based answers that are often historical and or include personal observations and reflection from participants in political institutions, events, issues or processes.

• Influence of geography: usa has way more quantitative research then any other western country.

• Distinctive for qualitative: few cases or one case, causes of effects, instead of effects of causes in population

• Depth over breadth

Core attributes of qualitative research:

• Inductive analysis: exploratory instead of testing hypotheses 

• Holistic approach: understand a phenomenon

• Data collection: detailed and depth, research design is adaptable

The divide:

• Skills within one method

• Sometimes mixed methods