POL208Y1 Lecture Notes - Realpolitik, Cuius Regio, Eius Religio, Nuclear Technology
Document Summary
This lecture introduced students to key concepts related to theoretical thinking in the social sciences: Definition of a theory: description, explanation, prediction. The importance of causal mechanisms (to avoid the dangers of spurious correlation) (how/why golfing leads to peace?) Testing a theory and the importance of falsification as a basis for theoretical refinement and progress. A way of organizing and simplifying data to gain explanatory power. The decision to drop the atomic bomb on hiroshima as an example. These are the types of explanations we find in the individual level. We think here about roles instead of people. We map the interest of the actors, their information flows, like an organization. We look at the decision making apparatus and procedures. In ir we mainly focus on regime type (democracy, autocracy, presidential democracy parliamentary democracies, etc): in democracy vs. autocracy would they behave differently.
