1 POLITICS

• Politics - It is the activity through which people make, preserve and

  amend the general rules under which they live.
• What is the heart of politics?

  Process of conflict resolution
• Politics is essentially a contested concept (differs in meaning from

  people to people). What are these concepts?

  
  

  • It is the exercise of power
  • It is the exercise of authority
  • It is the making of collective decisions
  • It is the allocation of scarce resources
  • It is the practice of deception and manipulation
• Fill in the blanks:

  A) government

  B) public affairs

  C) behavioralism

  D) choice theory

  E) institutionalism

  F) compromise

  G) consensus

  H) power

  I) distribution

  J) resources

  K) feminism

  L) marxism

  M) positivist

  
• Politics as an Arena

  It is in a location where behavior becomes political because of where politics takes place.
• Politics as a Process

  It is when political behavior explains distinctive

  characteristics in all social contexts.
• 4 Views of Politics

  1. Art of Government
  2. Politics as a Public Affair
  3. Politics as a Compromise and Consensus
  4. Politics as Power
• Politics was derived from Greek word polis (polis = city-

  state; classically understood to imply the highest or most

  desirable form of social organization).
• Authority - defined as legitimate power. While power is the ability to

  influence the behavior of others, authority is the right to do so. 
• Traditional authority is rooted in history (e.g. political dynasties, monarchies, and institutional track record).
• Charismatic authority stems from personality (eg. Duterte, Marcos, and Trump).
• Legal-rational authority is grounded in a set of impersonal rules (e.g. presidents, the chief justice, senators, and other elected/appointed officials).
• Polity - a society organized through the exercise of political

  authority. Aristotle defines this as the rule by the many

  in the interests of all.
• Power - It is the ability to achieve a desired outcome. Thought of as a relationship in politics; that is, the ability to influence the behavior of others in a manner not of their choosing.
• Politics as a Public Affair - It is defined by the public and private lives of people.
• Civil Society - originally meant a “political community” the term is now more commonly distinguished from the state and is used to describe institutions that are private, in that they are independent from the government and organized by individuals in pursuit of their own ends. 
• Fill in the blanks:

  A) state

  B) art

  C) clubs

  D) businesses

  E) domestic

  
• Conflict - Competition between opposing forces, reflecting a

  diversity of opinions, preferences, needs, or interests
• Consensus - A particular type of broad agreement that the terms are

  accepted by a wide range of individuals or groups.
• Politics is a means of resolving conflict through compromise, negotiation, and conciliation rather than violence or coercion.
• Politics as Power - The broadest and most radical definition of politics,  sees politics in all social activities and every corner of human existence.
• Three Dimensions of Power:

  1. As decision-making: Conscious actions that somehow influence decisions.
  2. As agenda setting: Suggested by Bachrach & Baratz, ability to prevent decisions from being made (non-decisionmaking). It involves the ability to control political agenda.
  3. As thought control: Ability to influence others by shaping what he/ she thinks, wants, &/or needs.
• Advocates of view of politics as a power:

  • Feminists
  • Marxists
• Approaches to studying politics:

  • Philosophical
  • Empirical Tradition
  • Behavioralism
  • Rational-choice Theory
  • New Institutionalism
  • Critical Approaches
• Political philosophy - was approached using its normative and prescriptive questioning (i.e. What should it be? What it must be? Right from wrong) rather than what it is really.
• Empirical tradition - Gave rise to the institutional approach (formal structures); offers a dispassionate and impartial account of political reality; descriptive; experience is the basis of knowledge.
• Behaviouralism - is the belief that social theories should be constructed only on the basis of observable behaviour, providing quantifiable data for research.
• Rational-choice theory - Relies heavily on economic models that assume individuals are rational, self-interested, and calculating; insights on voters, lobbyists, and bureaucrats: builds up models based on procedural

  rules.
• Comparative politics - politics involves identifying and exploring similarities and differences between political units (usually states) to develop ‘grounded theories’, test hypotheses, infer causal relationships, and produce reliable generalizations. 
• Constructivism - an approach to analysis that is based on the belief that there is no objective social or political reality independent of our understanding of it.
• Old institutionalism focused on how political structures affect political behavior but with new institutionalism, the understanding of what constitutes an institution has been revised.
• Postmodernism - highlights the shift away from societies structured by industrialization and class solidarity to increasingly fragmented and pluralistic ‘information’ societies.
• Critical approaches - contest the status quo, they go beyond the positivism of mainstream political science; have shared antipathy towards mainstream thinking.
• Label each appropriately

  A) concepts

  B) models

  C) theories

  D) macro

  E) traditions

  F) paradigms

  
• Politics in a Global Age. Fill in the blanks.

  A) international

  B) national

  C) worldwide

  D) local

  E) sphere

  
• Paradigm (Kuhn) - refers to an intellectual framework comprising interrelated values, theories, and assumptions, within which the search for knowledge is conducted.
• Ideal Type - Sometimes called pure type is a mental construct in which an attempt is made to draw out meaning from an otherwise almost infinitely complex reality through the presentation of a logical extreme.