Week-2

What is Politics?

* According to Aristotle, politics is considered the 'master science' because it is the fundamental activity through
which humans seek to improve their lives and establish a Good Society.

* Politics is a social activity. It is always a dialogue and never a monologue.

* Politics is the activity through which people make, preserve and amend general rules under which they live.

* The word politics derive from “polis” meaning city-state.

* Authority can most simply be defined as “legitimate power”.

• Power is the ability to influence the behaviour of others, authority is right to do so.

• Weber defines 3 kinds of authority: traditional that is rooted in history, charismatic stemming from personality
and legal that is grounded in a set of impersonal rules...

• Polity: A society organized through the exercise of political authority. For Aristotle, rule by the many for the
interests of all.

• Anti-politics can be traced back to Machiavelli who in Prince (Machiavelli’s book), developed a strictly realistic
account of politics that drew attention to the use by political leaders of cunning, cruelty and manipulation. (politics
as an art of government)

* The adjective ‘Machiavellian’ subsequently came to mean ‘cunning and duplicitous.

* Anti-politics: Disillusionment with formal or established political processes, reflected in non-participation, support
for anti-system parties, or the use of direct action.

* In Politics, Aristotle defined man as a political animal, and he meant that human beings can only live a good life in
a political community. (politics as public affairs)

* Civil society: It is used to describe institutions that are private meaning that they are independent from
government and organized by individuals.

* Politics is seen as a particular means of resolving conflict: that is by compromise, conciliation and negotiation
rather than through force and naked power. (politics as compromise and consensus)

! Consensus: Consensus means agreement, but it refers to an agreement of a particular kind. It implies, first, a broad
agreement, the terms of which are accepted by a wide range of individuals or groups.
* Politics is in essence power: the ability to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means. [politics as
power(4)] This view sees politics at work in all social activities and in every corner of human existence.

* ‘Faces’ of power: Power can be said to be exercised whenever A gets B to do something that B would not
otherwise have done. However, A can influence B in various ways. This allows us to distinguish between different
dimensions or ‘faces’ of power:

1-) Power as decision-making: Conscious actions that influence the content of decisions.

2-) Power as agenda setting: Ability to prevent decisions being made, non-decision making.

3-) Power as thought control: Ability to influence another by shaping what he or she thinks, wants and needs.

Week-3

Approaches to the study of politics

The philosophical tradition: Ethical, prescriptive, normative questions. Plato and Aristotle are the founding fathers.
Now has taken the form of a collection of major thinkers and a canon of classic texts. It cannot be objective as it
deals with normative questions.

Normative: The prescription of values and standards of conduct; what ‘should be’ rather than what ‘is’.

Objective: External to the observer, demonstrable; untainted by feelings, values or bias.

Plato: Both The Republic and The Laws are authoritarian and pay no attention to individual liberty believing that
power should be in the hands of the educated elite: philosopher kings.

The empirical tradition: Attempt to offer a dispassionate and impartial account of political reality. This approach is
descriptive. It seeks to analyses and explain. Machiavelli, Montesquieu. Positivism.

Empirical: Based on observation and experiment; empirical knowledge is derived from sense data and experience.

Behaviouralism: Objective and quantifiable data against which hypotheses could be tested. Politics could adopt the
methodology of the natural sciences, and this gave rise to number of research in areas that are best suited to use of
quantitative methods such as voting behavior etc.

Positivism: The theory that social, and indeed all forms of, enquiry should adhere strictly to the methods of the
natural sciences.

Behaviouralism: The belief that social theories should be constructed only on the basis of observable behaviors,
providing quantifiable data for research.

Bias: Sympathies or prejudices that (often unconsciously) affect human judgement; bias implies distortion (see
‘political bias’, p. 183).

Rational-choice theory: Formal political theory. Draws heavily on the example of economic theory in building up
models based on procedural rules. May provide insights into the actions of voters, lobbyists, politicians as well
states. Preferences and choices of individuals. May overestimate human rationality.

New institutionalism: Traditional institutionalism focused on the rules procedures and formal organization of
government and employed methods akin to those used in the study of law and history. New intuitionalism also
believed that political structures shape political behavior. But this new approach revised our understanding of what
constitutes an institution. Political institutions are not thought as things but as sets of rules.
Institution: A well-established body with a formal role and status; more broadly, a set of rules that ensure regular
and predictable behavior, the ‘rules of the game’.

Critical approaches: Feminism, critical theory, Marxism, green politics, constructivism, post-structuralism and post-
colonialism. What unites them is a shared antipathy towards mainstream thinking. They seek to contest the political
status quo by aligning themselves with marginalized/oppressed groups. Trying go beyond the positivism of
mainstream politics. Questioning what is objective.

Constructivism: There is no objective social or political reality independent of our understanding of it.

Post-positivism: Questioning the idea of objective and emphasizing the role of consciousness.

Post-structuralism: All ideas and concepts are in language which itself is enmeshed in complex relations of power.

Postmodernism: Highlights the shift away from societies structured by industrialization and class solidarity to
increasingly fragmented and pluralistic information societies.

Discourse: Human interaction, especially communication; discourse may disclose or illustrate power relations.

Deconstruction: A close reading of philosophical or other texts with an eye to their various blind spots and/or
contradictions.

Concepts, models and theories

A concept is a general idea about smth usually expressed in a single word or a short passage. They are the tools with
which we think, criticize, argue, explain ananases.

What about more rounded concepts such as freedom etc.? Weber tried to overcome this problem by recognizing
“ideal types”.

Conceptual travelling: application of concepts to new cases.

Conceptual stretching: The distortion that occurs when these concepts do not fit the new cases.

A further problem is that political concepts’ meaning are different to different people. No exact definition of
concepts can be developed.

A model is a representation of smth. Models’ task is to assist to the following task: facts do not speak for themselves,
they need interpretation.

Political system model of Easton:

Conceptual models are not reliable knowledge.

A theory is a systematic explanation of empirical data whereas a model is only an explanatory device. They are both
used as tools of political analysis and often used interchangeably.

A paradigm is a related set of principles, doctrines and theories that helps to structure the process of intellectual
enquiry.

According to Kuhn, the natural sciences are dominated at any time by a single paradigm; science develops through a
series of ‘revolutions’ in which an old paradigm is replaced by a new one.
Beyond the domestic/international divide?

Sovereignty is hard shell dividing inside and outside politics.

Inside: ability of the state within the domestic sphere to impose rules from above.

Outside: anarchic character derived from the fact that there is no authority in the international sphere higher than
the sovereign state.

Political science sees state as a macro-level actor where international relations see it as micro-level actor.

As state borders become more porous, these have started to change.

The increase in the scale, scope and nature of spatial interdependence has made the disciplinary divide between PS
and IR dissolve.

Sovereignty is no longer a hard shell but a soft one.

Week-4-5

1-) Liberalism:

The ideology of the industrialized West

It attacked absolutism and feudal privilege, promoting constitutional and representative government. Condemned all
forms of government intervention.

Late 19th century onwards: social liberalism emphasizing welfare reform and economic intervention.

Key ideas of liberalism:

- 1. Individualism

- 2. Freedom (freedom under the law)

- 3. Reason

- 4. Equality

- 5. Toleration

- 6. Consent

- 7. Constitutionalism (a limited government)

Classical Liberalism:

Commitment to an extreme form of individualism.

Establishment of a minimal state

Laissez-faire capitalism

Modern liberalism:

More sympathetic attitude towards state intervention

Freedom: ability of the individual to gain fulfilment and achieve self-esteem.

Keynes: growth and prosperity can be maintained through a system of managed or regulated capitalism with key
economic responsibilities being placed in the hands of the state.

Redistribution

Neoliberalism: Kaldı
The market and the individual

Updated version of classical political economy developed by free-market economists.

Unregulated market capitalism

Conservatism:

A reaction against the growing pace of economic and political change which was symbolized by French Revolution.

Traditional social order

The form that is autocratic and reactionary, rejecting any idea of reform, developed in continental Europe (de
Maistre)

Another form emerged in the UK and the USA, “change in order to conserve”. (Burke)

Key ideas of conservatism:

1. Tradition

2. Pragmatism

3. Human imperfection

4. Organicism

5. Hierarchy

6. Authority

7. Property

Paternalistic conservatism:

“Reform from above” was more preferable than “revolution from below”.

Noblesse oblige: Responsibility to look after the less well-off in the broader interests of social cohesion and unity.

One-Nation principle: disposition towards social reform+ pragmatic attitude towards economic policy. Middle way
approach: a blend of market competition and government regulation.

Christian democracy: A market strategy highlighting the virtues of private enterprise and competition, but it believes
that the prosperity gained should be employed for the broader benefit of society.
The New Right:

A kind of counter-revolution against both the post-1945 drift towards state intervention and the spread of liberal or
progressive social values.

Thatcherism and Reaganism

Influence in in bringing about a general shift from state –to market- orientated forms of organization.

Neoconservatism:

Reasserts 19th century conservative social principles.

Traditional values

Authority is seen as guaranteeing social stability.

Emergence of multicultural and multireligious societies is a concern.

An insular form of nationalism that is skeptical about both multiculturalism and the growing influence of
supranational bodies such as the UN and the EU.

Socialism:

Developed as a reaction against the emergence of industrial capitalism.

In the earliest forms, its goal was to abolish the capitalist economy and to replace it with socialism constructed on
the principle of common ownership.

Reformist socialism: Gradual integration of the working class into capitalist society through an improvement of
working conditions and wages, growth of trade unions and social political parties. It has 2 sources: humanist
tradition of ethical socialism and revisionist Marxism.

Revolutionary socialism: Communists following Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Social democracy: Turns its back to common ownership and recasts socialism in terms of welfare, redistribution and
economic management.

Key ideas of socialism:

1. Community

2. Fraternity

3. Social equality

4. Need

5. Social class

6. Common ownership

Marxism:

Collapse of communism at the end of 20th century is a fresh lease of Marxism from Leninism and Stalinism.

Orthodox Marxism dominated by dialectical materialism used as the basis of Soviets.

Classical Marxism:

Historical materialism: Economic conditions structure law, politics, culture and other aspects of social existence.

Historical change is a result of internal contradictions within a mode of production reflected in class conflict.

Capitalism is doomed to collapse and the inevitable proletarian revolution.

Dictatorship of the proletariat: Temporary proletarian state, established to prevent counter-revolution and oversee
the transition from capitalism to communism.

Orthodox communism:

Lenin’s contribution to Marxism: revolutionary or vanguard party

Fear that the proletariat won’t realize its revolutionary potential therefore a revolutionary party will serve as the
vanguard of the working class.

Economic Stalinism: 5 Year Plan which brought the swift and total eradication of private enterprise. Collectivization
of agriculture. All resources are under the control of the state. State Planning Committee.

Gorbachev’s perestroika reform process.

Perestroika: Restructuring. An attempt to liberalise and democratise the Soviet system within a communist
framework.

Neo-Marxism:

Process of reification

Hegemony of capitalism

Social democracy:

Balance between market/state and individual/community

An acceptance of capitalism as the only reliable mechanism for generating wealth but also a desire to distribute this
wealth in accordance with moral principles.

Keynesian social democracy: Humanizing capitalism through state intervention

Bernstein: modernized Orthodox Marxism. Possibility of a peaceful transition to socialism. One of the founding
figures of social democracy.

New social democracy:

Neo-revisionism or third way

Reconciling old-style social democracy with electorally-attractive aspects of neoliberalism.

Embracing liberal ideas of equality of opportunity and meritocracy

Other Ideological Traditions:

Fascism:

A revolt against the ideas and values that dominated western political thought since the French Revolution.

Values such as progress, rationalism, freedom and equality were overturned in the name of struggle, leadership,
power and war.

Strength through unity. Individual is nothing.

Italian fascism: Extreme form of statism based on unquestioning respect and absolute loyalty to the totalitarian
state.

German National Socialism: Constructed largely on racialism.

Anarchism:

Political authority in all its forms, especially in the form of the state is evil and unnecessary.

A stateless society in which free individuals manage their own affairs through voluntary agreement and cooperation
has been developed on the basis of two rival traditions: liberal individualism and socialist communitarianism.

Anarcho-capitalism: Unregulated market competition can and should be applied to all social arrangements.

Mutualism: A system of fair and quittable Exchange in which individuals or groups trade with one another without
profiteering or exploitation.

Anarcho-communism: Common ownership is the sole reliable basis for social solidarity.

Feminism:

First-wave feminism: Women’s suffrage movement in 1840s and 1850s.

Second-wave feminism: More radical and sometimes revolutionary demands of the growing Women’s Liberation
Movement in 1960s.

Liberal feminism: Unequal distribution of rights opportunities in society. Concerned with the reform in the public
sphere.

Socialist feminism: Economic significance of women being confined to a family or domestic life.

Radical feminism: Need for a sexual revolution that will restructure personal, domestic and family life. “The personal
is political.”

Third-wave feminism: Doubts about the conventional foal of gender equality, plaing an emphasis instead of
differences, both between women and men and between women themselves.

Green politics:

Reflects concenr about the damage done to the natural world by the increasing pace of economic development.

Anxiety about the declining quality of human existence.

Ecosocialism: Explains environmental destruction in terms of capitalism’s rapacious desire for profit.

Ecoconservatism: Desire to preserve traditional values and established institutions.

Ecofeminism: Origins of the ecological crisis is male power.

Anthropocentricism: The world is to satisfy human needs.

Cosmopolitanism:

Ideological expression of globalization

A belief in the cosmopolis: world-state

Moral cosmopolitanism: World constitutes a single moral community.

Liberal cosmopolitanism: Universalizing civic and political rights. Strengthening international law through
international courts and tribunals. Universalizing market society.

Socialist cosmopolitanism: Proletarian class solidarity has a transnational character.

Cultural cosmopolitanism: People’s values and lifestyles are reconfigured as a result of global interconnectedness.

Non-western ideological trends

Postcolonialism:

Giving the non-western world a distinctive political voice

Bandung Conference, Non-Aligned Movement as an independent power bloc

Contradiction to both western and Soviet models of development

Religious fundamentalism:

Most importantly Islamic fundamentalism or political Islam

Islamic beliefs should constitute the principles of social life and politics.

Shari’a law

Iranian Revolution in 1979, founding of world’s first Islamic state.

Islamism has been a vehicle to express anti-westernism.

Asian values:

Not rejecting universal human rights

But also drawing attention to the differences between western and Asian value systems, highlighting that human
rights are constructed on the basis of culturally biases western assumptions.

Beyond dualism:

Non-dualistic emphasis

Has its greates impact on green politics