POLI 222 Lecture 1: Ways of thinking about the political process

• School: McGill University
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POLI 222
• Professor: Christa Scholtz

Document Summary

Try to explain political outcomes and eventually, we may be successful in predicting and understanding politics. We may try to predict things, we try to explain something and be analytical about a political outcome. How do we categorize the explanations we come up with. Give categories that are basically ideas and institutions. Politics: the activity by which rival claims are settled by public authorities. Important because it signifies a competitive aspect, politics is about competition. When you listen to campaign coverage, it is is all about the gain, there is a competition at stake, potential winners and losers and the result is not neutral. Public attention: resource of politics, nothing can be done without peoples attention. Competing for saliency, to have your particular issue and your take on that issue to be the topic of public interest. Having people tune in/enough people is a big and inherent part of politics.