Order 1294302: Political Science
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Chapter2-20111.pptIntroduction to Political Science (POL120)
Roskin, et al (2012)
Chapter 2
THEORIES
Dr. Kula A. Francis
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Why are Theories important?
- Gathering of facts without a principle to lead:
- Meteorologists – “its going to rain” (is based on something/ more than a hunch)
- Theories are needed to know what questions to ask…
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Models of Politics
- Percolation up
- Concerned about the bottom part upward…
- Interest groups’ formation
- How citizens vote
- Percolation down
- Concerned about the top part downward…
- How legislatures and executives react to …
- Public opinion
- Interest groups
- Political parties
Turn to page 22 (Roskin, et al, 2012)
Which seems most correct?
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Major Theorists
- Plato – … most recognized as the founder of political science.
- Aristotle – … first empirical political scientist.
- Completed the first “Census”.
- Aristotle (student of Plato, believed that democracies required a large group of middle class citizens. Without it, the state will end.)
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Major Theorists (Cont.)
- Machiavelli – the focus on power…(The Prince, tells us that there is a need to get, and use political power)
- Was a realist…
- Considered by some the first modern philosopher
- Morgenthau – “all politics is a struggle for power”
- German Refugee; scholar
- Made Americans aware of “political power”
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Major Theorists (Cont.)
- The Contractualists (p. 24)
- Why do we need political systems at all?
- They all agreed that humans need a social contract…
- Hobbes – Need of a society
- Compared life in the state of nature to civil society…
- State of Nature – Constant enemies with every other man
- “No art, no letters, no society”
- To END this, people would form Societies (only out of fear)
- Locke – “Life, liberty and property”
- Also compared life in the state of nature to civil society…
- The original state of nature was Good (living equally and tolerably)
- No money, land ownership, courts, thus needed civil society
- Civil Society secures their “Life, Liberty and Property”.
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Major Theorists (Cont.)
- Rousseau (French) – is said to have laid the groundwork for the French Revolution
- Accepted the theories of Hobbes and Locke (but made his own)
- Life in the state of nature was good… Living as “Noble Savages”… society corrupting man!
- Societies make people, not the other way around…
- U.S. founding fathers studied Hobbes and Locke
- Making the Constitution a Social Contract
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Major Theorists (Cont.)
- Marx – German – living in London… Focused on three interrelated areas… economics, social class and history.
- Things NEVER happen by accident…
- Economics – Workers produce things (but are paid small fragments of what they produced)
- The capitalists skim off the rest (surplus value).. Without the hard work
- The workers (Proletariats) make too little money to afford the things they make… Leads to repeated overproduction… Leading to Depressions
- Marx believed that eventually causing capital systems to collapse.
- Social Class – Every society is divided into two groups:
- Those who own the means of production (small group; sets the laws)
- Those who work for the small class.
- The proletariats have no true country (Just suffer under Capitalists)
- History – Based on economic and social factors, history will (has) tell (told) us everything we need to understand.
- Is Karl Marx correct?
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Stable Democracies
- According to Lipset (1960) [by combining Marx and Aristotle]
Devised…
- Countries with a GDP below $5000 not likely to be a democracy
- Countries with a GDP above $8000 likely to be democracy
- Had the industry, radios, education, cars, doctors,
- Large middle classes
*What about China?
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Rational-Choice Theory
- Predicting Political Behavior
- Based on Interests
- Based on Public Opinion
- Based on culture, religion, language, ethnicity, etc.
- Consummate Opportunists!!!
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KEY TERMS
- Behavioralism – the empirical study of actual human behavior rather than abstract or speculative theories
- Bourgeois – Adjective, originally French for city dweller; later and current, middle class in general.
- Civil Society – Humans after becoming civilized, Modern Usage: Associations between family and government.
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KEY TERMS
- Descriptive - Explaining what is…
- General Will – Rousseau’s Theory of what everybody in the community wants.
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – Sum Total of goods and services produced in a given country in one year, often expressed per capita (GDPpc) by dividing population into GDP.
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KEY TERMS
- Institution – The formal structures of government, such as the U.S. Congress.
- Leftist – Favors social and economic change to uplift poor.
- Normative – Explaining what ought to be…
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KEY TERMS
- Paradigm – A model or way of doing research accepted by a discipline.
- Positivism - Theory that society can be studied scientifically and incrementally improved with the knowledge gained.
- Postbehavioral – A synthesis of traditional, behavioral, and other techniques in the study of politics.
- Proletariat – Marx’s name for the industrial working class.
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KEY TERMS
- Realism – Working with the world as it is and not as we wish it to be; usually focused on power.
- Social Contract – theory that individuals join and stay in civil society as if they had signed a contract.
- State of Nature – humans before civilization.
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Key Terms
- Superstructure – Marx’s term for everything that is built on top of the economy (laws, arts, politics, etc.).
- Thesis - A main idea or claim, to be proved by evidence.
- Zeitgeist – German for “spirit of the times”: Hegel’s theory that each epoch has a distinctive spirit, which moves history along.
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