POL S 6 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Quantitative Research, Jargon, Deductive Reasoning
HOMEWORK: Reading (check the syllabus); prepare for pop quizzes
INTRO TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS, CONT. CH 1: What is Comparative Politics? (Pgs.
2-23)
Aristotle as the first comparativist
Differentiating Greek city-states
Categorized them according to their form of political rule (a single
individual; group of people; all citizens)
§
Studies the degree of democracy
§
○
Gathered the constitutions of 158 Greek city-states
○
Found six types of political systems
○
Distinguished good from corrupt -- did those in power rule in their own
interest or for the common welfare?
○
Emphasized description rather than normative theory or philosophy
Focus on positive theory which makes him a comparativist
§
○
"man is by nature a political animal" -- Aristotle
○
•
Niccolo Machiavelli - 16th Century
Looked at politics in a comparative way
○
Wrote book "The Prince"
○
"the first modern political scientist"
○
Analyzed different political systems like Aristotle… comparing and
contrasting them
○
Spurred the emergence of a comparative approach to politics
○
•
Political science came first, and then comparative politics grew to exist
Jumping ahead several 100 years, by the beginning of the 1900s, political
science formally existed as a field of study, but CP really did not
○
What existed was more akin to political journalism -- largely descriptive
and atheoretical and concentrated on Europe
○
WWI, WWII, and the Cold War changed the study of politics, especially in
the US
○
Studying comparative politics became a matter of survival in the Cold War
era as it does today, but there were differences among political scientists
about how to study the subjects
○
•
Modernization Theory and the "Behavioral Revolution"
Modernization theory: a theory asserting that as societies developed,
they would take on a set of common characteristics, including democracy
and capitalism
○
Comparative politics remained a rather conservative discipline, with
modernization theory assuming that capitalism and democracy were the
ideal (and even predetermined) forms of development
○
This assumption was challenged by the behavioral revolution, a
movement during the 1950s and 1960s to develop theories about political
behavior that could be applied across all countries
Behavioral revolution: a movement within political science during
the '50s and '60s to develop general theories about individual
political behavior that could be applied across all countries
§
○
Today the emphasis is on "mid-range theory"
○
Criticisms of both
Behavioral revolution's emphasis on methodology over knowledge
and technical jargon over clarity
§
Modernization theory had an ideological bias: not interested in
understanding the world but in prescribing the Western model of
modernization
§
○
Conflict today
Methodology: should research be qualitative, quantitative, focus on
rational choice and game theory?
Qualitative method: study through an in-depth investigation
of a limited number of cases
□
Quantitative method: study through statistical data from
many cases
□
Rational choice: approach that assumes that individuals
weigh the costs and benefits and make choices to maximize
benefits
□
Game theory: approach that emphasizes how actors or
organizations behave in their goal to influence others; built
upon assumptions of rational choice
□
§
More recently the emphasis on careful analysis irrespective of the
method
§
Mixed methods are helpful
§
Good to use both inductive and deductive reasoning
§
○
•
Political Institutions
Definitions of Political Institutions
Organizations or activities that are self-perpetuating and valued for
their own sake
§
Rules and procedures (both formal and informal) that structure
social interaction by constraining and enabling actors' behavior
§
○
Two types of political institutions
Formal institutions: institutions based on officially sanctioned rules
that are relatively clear
Written down□
Rigorous□
Government or formal organization/body establishes these
rules that constituents must follow
□
i.e. laws, citizenship, electoral systems, federal vs. unitary
systems
□
§
Informal institutions: institutions with unwritten and unofficial
rules
Cultural and societal rules that aren’t really thought about□
"ways of life"□
Accepted among a community□
i.e. trust, solidarity, social pressure, legislative norms (US
Senate's filibuster.. Japan's Ox Walk), neopatrimonialism,
gender expectations/relations
□
§
○
Vary from country to country
○
•
Guiding Ideals: Freedom and Equality
Do you think it most important that the US government try to create
policies that:
Grow and expand the economy?
§
Increase the opportunity for people to get ahead if they want to?
§
Reduce income and wealth gap btwn the rich and poor?
§
○
Freedom: the ability of an individual to act independently without fear of
restriction or punishment by the state or other individuals/groups in
society
○
Equality: shared material standard of living shared by individuals within a
community , society, or country
○
Justice: relation between equality and freedom, measuring whether or
not ideals have been met
○
•
Lecture 3: Intro to CP, cont.
Tuesday, April 10, 2018
3:38 PM
