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Introduction to Political Science

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Introduction to Political ScienceSummary
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Table of contents
  1. Preface
  2. Introduction to Political Science
    1. 1 What Is Politics and What Is Political Science?
      1. Introduction
      2. 1.1 Defining Politics: Who Gets What, When, Where, How, and Why?
      3. 1.2 Public Policy, Public Interest, and Power
      4. 1.3 Political Science: The Systematic Study of Politics
      5. 1.4 Normative Political Science
      6. 1.5 Empirical Political Science
      7. 1.6 Individuals, Groups, Institutions, and International Relations
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
  3. Individuals
    1. 2 Political Behavior Is Human Behavior
      1. Introduction
      2. 2.1 What Goals Should We Seek in Politics?
      3. 2.2 Why Do Humans Make the Political Choices That They Do?
      4. 2.3 Human Behavior Is Partially Predictable
      5. 2.4 The Importance of Context for Political Decisions
      6. Summary
      7. Key Terms
      8. Review Questions
      9. Suggested Readings
    2. 3 Political Ideology
      1. Introduction
      2. 3.1 The Classical Origins of Western Political Ideologies
      3. 3.2 The Laws of Nature and the Social Contract
      4. 3.3 The Development of Varieties of Liberalism
      5. 3.4 Nationalism, Communism, Fascism, and Authoritarianism
      6. 3.5 Contemporary Democratic Liberalism
      7. 3.6 Contemporary Ideologies Further to the Political Left
      8. 3.7 Contemporary Ideologies Further to the Political Right
      9. 3.8 Political Ideologies That Reject Political Ideology: Scientific Socialism, Burkeanism, and Religious Extremism
      10. Summary
      11. Key Terms
      12. Review Questions
      13. Suggested Readings
    3. 4 Civil Liberties
      1. Introduction
      2. 4.1 The Freedom of the Individual
      3. 4.2 Constitutions and Individual Liberties
      4. 4.3 The Right to Privacy, Self-Determination, and the Freedom of Ideas
      5. 4.4 Freedom of Movement
      6. 4.5 The Rights of the Accused
      7. 4.6 The Right to a Healthy Environment
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
    4. 5 Political Participation and Public Opinion
      1. Introduction
      2. 5.1 What Is Political Participation?
      3. 5.2 What Limits Voter Participation in the United States?
      4. 5.3 How Do Individuals Participate Other Than Voting?
      5. 5.4 What Is Public Opinion and Where Does It Come From?
      6. 5.5 How Do We Measure Public Opinion?
      7. 5.6 Why Is Public Opinion Important?
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
  4. Groups
    1. 6 The Fundamentals of Group Political Activity
      1. Introduction
      2. 6.1 Political Socialization: The Ways People Become Political
      3. 6.2 Political Culture: How People Express Their Political Identity
      4. 6.3 Collective Dilemmas: Making Group Decisions
      5. 6.4 Collective Action Problems: The Problem of Incentives
      6. 6.5 Resolving Collective Action Problems
      7. Summary
      8. Key Terms
      9. Review Questions
      10. Suggested Readings
    2. 7 Civil Rights
      1. Introduction
      2. 7.1 Civil Rights and Constitutionalism
      3. 7.2 Political Culture and Majority-Minority Relations
      4. 7.3 Civil Rights Abuses
      5. 7.4 Civil Rights Movements
      6. 7.5 How Do Governments Bring About Civil Rights Change?
      7. Summary
      8. Key Terms
      9. Review Questions
      10. Suggested Readings
    3. 8 Interest Groups, Political Parties, and Elections
      1. Introduction
      2. 8.1 What Is an Interest Group?
      3. 8.2 What Are the Pros and Cons of Interest Groups?
      4. 8.3 Political Parties
      5. 8.4 What Are the Limits of Parties?
      6. 8.5 What Are Elections and Who Participates?
      7. 8.6 How Do People Participate in Elections?
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
  5. Institutions
    1. 9 Legislatures
      1. Introduction
      2. 9.1 What Do Legislatures Do?
      3. 9.2 What Is the Difference between Parliamentary and Presidential Systems?
      4. 9.3 What Is the Difference between Unicameral and Bicameral Systems?
      5. 9.4 The Decline of Legislative Influence
      6. Summary
      7. Key Terms
      8. Review Questions
      9. Suggested Readings
    2. 10 Executives, Cabinets, and Bureaucracies
      1. Introduction
      2. 10.1 Democracies: Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Regimes
      3. 10.2 The Executive in Presidential Regimes
      4. 10.3 The Executive in Parliamentary Regimes
      5. 10.4 Advantages, Disadvantages, and Challenges of Presidential and Parliamentary Regimes
      6. 10.5 Semi-Presidential Regimes
      7. 10.6 How Do Cabinets Function in Presidential and Parliamentary Regimes?
      8. 10.7 What Are the Purpose and Function of Bureaucracies?
      9. Summary
      10. Key Terms
      11. Review Questions
      12. Suggested Readings
    3. 11 Courts and Law
      1. Introduction
      2. 11.1 What Is the Judiciary?
      3. 11.2 How Does the Judiciary Take Action?
      4. 11.3 Types of Legal Systems around the World
      5. 11.4 Criminal versus Civil Laws
      6. 11.5 Due Process and Judicial Fairness
      7. 11.6 Judicial Review versus Executive Sovereignty
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
    4. 12 The Media
      1. Introduction
      2. 12.1 The Media as a Political Institution: Why Does It Matter?
      3. 12.2 Types of Media and the Changing Media Landscape
      4. 12.3 How Do Media and Elections Interact?
      5. 12.4 The Internet and Social Media
      6. 12.5 Declining Global Trust in the Media
      7. Summary
      8. Key Terms
      9. Review Questions
      10. Suggested Readings
  6. States and International Relations
    1. 13 Governing Regimes
      1. Introduction
      2. 13.1 Contemporary Government Regimes: Power, Legitimacy, and Authority
      3. 13.2 Categorizing Contemporary Regimes
      4. 13.3 Recent Trends: Illiberal Representative Regimes
      5. Summary
      6. Key Terms
      7. Review Questions
      8. Suggested Readings
    2. 14 International Relations
      1. Introduction
      2. 14.1 What Is Power, and How Do We Measure It?
      3. 14.2 Understanding the Different Types of Actors in the International System
      4. 14.3 Sovereignty and Anarchy
      5. 14.4 Using Levels of Analysis to Understand Conflict
      6. 14.5 The Realist Worldview
      7. 14.6 The Liberal and Social Worldview
      8. 14.7 Critical Worldviews
      9. Summary
      10. Key Terms
      11. Review Questions
      12. Suggested Readings
    3. 15 International Law and International Organizations
      1. Introduction
      2. 15.1 The Problem of Global Governance
      3. 15.2 International Law
      4. 15.3 The United Nations and Global Intergovernmental Organizations (IGOs)
      5. 15.4 How Do Regional IGOs Contribute to Global Governance?
      6. 15.5 Non-state Actors: Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs)
      7. 15.6 Non-state Actors beyond NGOs
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
    4. 16 International Political Economy
      1. Introduction
      2. 16.1 The Origins of International Political Economy
      3. 16.2 The Advent of the Liberal Economy
      4. 16.3 The Bretton Woods Institutions
      5. 16.4 The Post–Cold War Period and Modernization Theory
      6. 16.5 From the 1990s to the 2020s: Current Issues in IPE
      7. 16.6 Considering Poverty, Inequality, and the Environmental Crisis
      8. Summary
      9. Key Terms
      10. Review Questions
      11. Suggested Readings
  7. References
  8. Index

6.1 Political Socialization: The Ways People Become Political

Political socialization is the process by which individuals develop their political personalities from their youth through their adult years. These personalities include values and attitudes regarding politics, such as one’s views about the role of the government and the relationship between the government and citizens. Socialization affects whether people are even interested in politics and government in the first place.

Those who are most important in a person’s life, like their families and friends, play important roles in their political socialization. Schools, places of worship, and—increasingly—interactions with others through social media can also be important influences. The process is not deterministic; you cannot look at all the influences on your development and predict precisely who you will become. Still, you do not entirely choose who you will become, as you are in part the product of your social environment.

6.2 Political Culture: How People Express Their Political Identity

Every country has multiple political cultures. Political culture is the set of political attitudes, values, goals, and practices common to members of any political grouping. Countries have distinct political cultures, which means that citizens of a country are likely to share common views about their roles as citizens and the responsibilities of the government.

In any country, you can identify elite, mass, and minority cultures, each having its own set of views and attitudes and, perhaps, social markers such as clothing, music, or even dietary preferences. The elite culture comprises those who dominate a country’s political agenda, policy choices, and official positions of power. The mass culture consists of the bulk of citizens or, in democracies, voters who typically embrace the political values that are central to the nation’s political cultures but who are not in positions of power. A vast number of minority cultures exist, each having its own particular set of attitudes and behaviors. A key aspect of minority cultures is that they allow groups of individuals to distinguish themselves from the majority culture in ways that produce pride, belonging, and solidarity. Minority cultures arise for diverse reasons and may later develop their own political identities. Those in a particular culture might both change their personal behaviors to advance the group’s goals and engage in political activism with others in that culture.

6.3 Collective Dilemmas: Making Group Decisions

Whenever individuals come together to make decisions, there is the potential that the group (collective) will face certain difficulties (dilemmas). These difficulties can involve disagreement about group goals or about the best course of action, or they might involve incentives individuals have to act in ways that are counter to group interests. When a group is sizable, one or more of these dilemmas is likely to exist in every attempt to make decisions or take action.

When group members disagree regarding goals, a decision can be reached by force or through nonviolent, democratic means. Nonviolent, democratic processes typically involve voting. In these cases, the voting rules will influence the outcome. These rules can vary, from a plurality rule, in which the outcome is decided by the position that obtains the most votes, to a unanimity rule, in which everyone must ultimately agree to a single position. In general, voting rules are set so that the more consequential the issue, the higher the proportion of votes is needed to change the status quo.

Groups making decisions face coordination challenges. These challenges exist when group members generally agree on the goals but disagree about the specifics. Making decisions regarding the specifics creates transaction costs—the time, effort, and other resources required to make the decisions—and conformity costs—the differences between the value of the policy that each individual hoped for and the decision they each actually received.

6.4 Collective Action Problems: The Problem of Incentives

Collective action problems involve group decisions in which individuals within the group would benefit from cooperating with other group members, but they each have incentives not to cooperate. Individuals acting on these incentives can harm the group and, paradoxically, themselves.

In the tragedy of the commons, self-interested individuals have incentives to take as much of a public resource as they can. If enough individuals act on these incentives, the resource will be depleted; at that point, no individual would have access to the resource. Individuals are said to be free riding if they do not contribute to a group goal but still receive the same outcome as the group members who contribute. In a prisoner’s dilemma, the participants would benefit from cooperating with each other, but they have strong incentives to defect. As each participant faces similar incentives, the likely outcome is that every participant is worse off than if they had cooperated.

6.5 Resolving Collective Action Problems

Collective action problems are common in large groups, and they are difficult to solve. The tragedy of the commons can be prevented if some authority can restrict exploitation of the resource or if the commons can be privatized in a way that prevents the resource from being depleted. Free riding can be avoided through monitoring that can detect free riders and sanctions that can punish them. Creating social solidarity so that individuals believe that they should not free ride can also be important. Unless the participants in a prisoner’s dilemma trust each other and know that they will need to work together again in the future, the expectation is that the outcome of the dilemma will harm both players. Avoiding this outcome requires a third party that can enforce cooperation or punish those who defect to induce future cooperation.

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