Introduction to Politics | Concepts
Concept: an idea, term or category that is best approached with a definition restricted to its inherent
characteristics.
Conception: builds on a concept by describing the understandings, perspectives or interpretations of
a concept.
Social science: the study of human society and the structured interactions among people within the
society (the institutions they build, the rules they agree, the process they use, their underlying
motives and the results of their interactions).
Government: the arena for making and enforcing collective decisions, the institutions and offices
through which societies are governed. Used to describe the group of people who govern, a specific
administration, the form of the system of rule, and the nature and direction of the administration of
a community.
Governance: the process by which decisions, laws and policies are made, with or without the input
of formal institutions
Political system: the interactions and organizations through which a society reaches and successfully
enforces collective decisions. The broader array of forces surrounding and influencing government.
Politics: the process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing
shared or collective decisions.
Comparative politics: the systematic study of government and politics in different countries,
designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities.
Power: the capacity to bring about intended effects. The term is often used as a synonym for
influence, but is also used more narrowly to refer to more forceful modes of influence: notably
getting one’s way by threats.
Authority: the right to rule. Authority creates its own power, so long as people accept that the
person in authority has the right to make decisions.
Legitimacy: the state or quality of being legitimate. A legitimate system of government is one based
on authority, and those subject to its rule recognize its right to make decisions.
Ideology: a system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for how politics,
economics and society should be structured.
Typology: a system of classification by which states, institutions, processes, political cultures, and so
on are divided into groups or types with common sets of attributes.
Political economy: the relationship between political activity and economic performance.
,Lecture 1 | Introduction to Politics (Chapter 1 and 5)
Political science
Political science: the study of governments, public policies and political processes, systems and
political behavior.
Master science, since politics affect every human social endeavor (Aristotle).
Comparative politics as sub-field
Comparative politics: the systematic study of government and politics in different countries,
designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities. Values:
Broadening understanding
Enabling classification
Testing hypotheses
Prediction and control
Politics
Politics: the process by which people negotiate and compete to reach and enforce collective
decisions as an essentially contested concept which consist of contrasting conceptions.
Two approaches to politics
I. Politics as an arena: behavior becomes political because of where it takes places.
Art of government
Public affairs (public vs. private)
II. Politics as a process: behavior becomes political because of distinctive qualities.
Politics as power
Politics as compromise and consensus
Politics is exciting because people disagree about how they should live
Politics is thus unavoidably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation.
The heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict resolution.
Inescapable presence of diversity (not all alike), and scarcity (there is never enough
to go around) ensures that politics is an inevitable feature of human condition.
Politics is a social activity, it is always a dialogue and never a monologue.
Approaches to study politics
Theoretical approaches: ways of studying politics, and help in identifying the right questions to ask
and how to go about answering them.
School of thoughts or ways to study politics.
Influence identifying and structuring what questions to ask.
Where and how we should search for answers.
Complicating factors
The field is so broad that it includes numerous theoretical expressions.
The field has been criticized for focusing too much on ideas emerging from the Western
tradition.
The debate about theory is more about competing explanations than about their practical,
real-world applications.
The place of theory in the social sciences more generally is based on shaky foundations.
,Six approaches with focus on the ‘I’
I. Institutional approach (institutions)
II. Behavioral approach (individuals)
III. Rational-choice approach (interests)
IV. Structural approach (interrelations of groups)
V. Cultural approach (influence of societal cultural values)
VI. Interpretive approach
I. Institutional approach
Institutions provide the rules of the game and shape individual behaviors. Institutions are pillars of
the order in liberal democratic politics: they provide sources of continuity and predictability.
Known as one of the historical theoretical approaches and remains an important tradition in
comparative politics.
Core to the discipline.
Positions within organizations matter more than the people who occupy them.
Impact of institutions explains that the differences between nations are because of the
institutions (extractive vs. inclusive institutions).
II. Behavioral approach
The study of individuals, as the unit of analysis, rather than the institutions (judges rather than
courts). In 1960, a shift from the institutions towards the individuals occurred.
Generalization about political attitudes and behavior.
Apply innovative social science techniques (public surveys).
Objective, value-free research, scientific explanation rather than descriptions.
Criticism: too much science and too little politics
III. Rational-choice approach
Rationality and self-interest as core assumptions: the elementary unit of social life is individual
human action.
Rooted in ahistorical economics.
Based on universal model of human behavior, which is questionable.
Criticism: the collective action problem, individual rationality leads to a poor collective
result. Moreover, people are not always rational actors.
IV. Structural approach
The objective interrelationship between social groups: emphasize objective relationships among
social groups rather than the interests and outlooks of particular actors.
Corrective to the limitation of individual-level analysis.
Embrace change more easily than institutions.
Importance of social structure and social relations which shape, constrain and empower
actors.
Using comparative history methodology, contrast with non-historical generalization favored
by behavioralists and rationalists.
V. Cultural approach
Understanding the influence of cultural norms: the values, beliefs, norms and habits that co-
determine the action, reaction and preferences of a society, even with individual differences.
How cultural norms and practices support and determine different political preferences.
Multiculturalism.
Criticism: danger of stereotyping and ethnocentrism.
, VI. Interpretive approach
Distinctive focus on idea and interpretations, assumptions, identities, constructions, meanings and
narratives: identities and interests of actors are constructed by shared ideas rather than given by
nature and a social approach rather than a psychological one.
Structures of human association are determined by shared ideas rather than material forces,
no objective or political reality.
Ideas shape our interests, goals, allies and enemies.
Political affairs cannot be a behavioral science seeking laws but rather must be an
interpretative one seeking meaning.
Criticism: with emphasis on meaning, misses commonplace observation, the interpretive
approach is more aspiration than achievement.
Concept: an idea, term or category that is best approached with a definition restricted to its inherent
characteristics.
Conception: builds on a concept by describing the understandings, perspectives or interpretations of
a concept.
Social science: the study of human society and the structured interactions among people within the
society (the institutions they build, the rules they agree, the process they use, their underlying
motives and the results of their interactions).
Government: the arena for making and enforcing collective decisions, the institutions and offices
through which societies are governed. Used to describe the group of people who govern, a specific
administration, the form of the system of rule, and the nature and direction of the administration of
a community.
Governance: the process by which decisions, laws and policies are made, with or without the input
of formal institutions
Political system: the interactions and organizations through which a society reaches and successfully
enforces collective decisions. The broader array of forces surrounding and influencing government.
Politics: the process by which people negotiate and compete in the process of making and executing
shared or collective decisions.
Comparative politics: the systematic study of government and politics in different countries,
designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities.
Power: the capacity to bring about intended effects. The term is often used as a synonym for
influence, but is also used more narrowly to refer to more forceful modes of influence: notably
getting one’s way by threats.
Authority: the right to rule. Authority creates its own power, so long as people accept that the
person in authority has the right to make decisions.
Legitimacy: the state or quality of being legitimate. A legitimate system of government is one based
on authority, and those subject to its rule recognize its right to make decisions.
Ideology: a system of connected beliefs, a shared view of the world, or a blueprint for how politics,
economics and society should be structured.
Typology: a system of classification by which states, institutions, processes, political cultures, and so
on are divided into groups or types with common sets of attributes.
Political economy: the relationship between political activity and economic performance.
,Lecture 1 | Introduction to Politics (Chapter 1 and 5)
Political science
Political science: the study of governments, public policies and political processes, systems and
political behavior.
Master science, since politics affect every human social endeavor (Aristotle).
Comparative politics as sub-field
Comparative politics: the systematic study of government and politics in different countries,
designed to better understand them by drawing out their contrasts and similarities. Values:
Broadening understanding
Enabling classification
Testing hypotheses
Prediction and control
Politics
Politics: the process by which people negotiate and compete to reach and enforce collective
decisions as an essentially contested concept which consist of contrasting conceptions.
Two approaches to politics
I. Politics as an arena: behavior becomes political because of where it takes places.
Art of government
Public affairs (public vs. private)
II. Politics as a process: behavior becomes political because of distinctive qualities.
Politics as power
Politics as compromise and consensus
Politics is exciting because people disagree about how they should live
Politics is thus unavoidably linked to the phenomena of conflict and cooperation.
The heart of politics is often portrayed as a process of conflict resolution.
Inescapable presence of diversity (not all alike), and scarcity (there is never enough
to go around) ensures that politics is an inevitable feature of human condition.
Politics is a social activity, it is always a dialogue and never a monologue.
Approaches to study politics
Theoretical approaches: ways of studying politics, and help in identifying the right questions to ask
and how to go about answering them.
School of thoughts or ways to study politics.
Influence identifying and structuring what questions to ask.
Where and how we should search for answers.
Complicating factors
The field is so broad that it includes numerous theoretical expressions.
The field has been criticized for focusing too much on ideas emerging from the Western
tradition.
The debate about theory is more about competing explanations than about their practical,
real-world applications.
The place of theory in the social sciences more generally is based on shaky foundations.
,Six approaches with focus on the ‘I’
I. Institutional approach (institutions)
II. Behavioral approach (individuals)
III. Rational-choice approach (interests)
IV. Structural approach (interrelations of groups)
V. Cultural approach (influence of societal cultural values)
VI. Interpretive approach
I. Institutional approach
Institutions provide the rules of the game and shape individual behaviors. Institutions are pillars of
the order in liberal democratic politics: they provide sources of continuity and predictability.
Known as one of the historical theoretical approaches and remains an important tradition in
comparative politics.
Core to the discipline.
Positions within organizations matter more than the people who occupy them.
Impact of institutions explains that the differences between nations are because of the
institutions (extractive vs. inclusive institutions).
II. Behavioral approach
The study of individuals, as the unit of analysis, rather than the institutions (judges rather than
courts). In 1960, a shift from the institutions towards the individuals occurred.
Generalization about political attitudes and behavior.
Apply innovative social science techniques (public surveys).
Objective, value-free research, scientific explanation rather than descriptions.
Criticism: too much science and too little politics
III. Rational-choice approach
Rationality and self-interest as core assumptions: the elementary unit of social life is individual
human action.
Rooted in ahistorical economics.
Based on universal model of human behavior, which is questionable.
Criticism: the collective action problem, individual rationality leads to a poor collective
result. Moreover, people are not always rational actors.
IV. Structural approach
The objective interrelationship between social groups: emphasize objective relationships among
social groups rather than the interests and outlooks of particular actors.
Corrective to the limitation of individual-level analysis.
Embrace change more easily than institutions.
Importance of social structure and social relations which shape, constrain and empower
actors.
Using comparative history methodology, contrast with non-historical generalization favored
by behavioralists and rationalists.
V. Cultural approach
Understanding the influence of cultural norms: the values, beliefs, norms and habits that co-
determine the action, reaction and preferences of a society, even with individual differences.
How cultural norms and practices support and determine different political preferences.
Multiculturalism.
Criticism: danger of stereotyping and ethnocentrism.
, VI. Interpretive approach
Distinctive focus on idea and interpretations, assumptions, identities, constructions, meanings and
narratives: identities and interests of actors are constructed by shared ideas rather than given by
nature and a social approach rather than a psychological one.
Structures of human association are determined by shared ideas rather than material forces,
no objective or political reality.
Ideas shape our interests, goals, allies and enemies.
Political affairs cannot be a behavioral science seeking laws but rather must be an
interpretative one seeking meaning.
Criticism: with emphasis on meaning, misses commonplace observation, the interpretive
approach is more aspiration than achievement.
