Politics make the world go round. The news, jobs, and the economy are incorporated in politics. I’ve put together and simple guide to learning politics. It just might be a great conversation starter, or if you’re that person that never understands what anyone is talking about, here is your chance! Learn comparative politics!
2.0 WHAT IS SCIENCE
2.1 INTRODUCTION
-These statements are in some sense wrong, because science is not a collection of facts that tell us what we know about the world. Scientific theories cannot be proven, thus, a scientific theory is not one that has been proven.
– Science is a collection of facts that tell us what we know about the world.
– A scientific theory is one that has been proven.
– “The sun revolves around the earth” is not a scientific statement.
– If my theory is correct, then I should observe that rich countries are more likely to be democracies. I do observe that rich countries are more likely to be democracies. Therefore, me theory is correct.
– Politics cannot be studied.
2.2 THE COMPARATIVE METHOD
– Political Scientists that who employ these methods collect observations of the world & then use these observations to develop general laws and theories about why certain political phenomena occur.
– Goal: Identify the ‘causation’ meaning: ‘necessary’ & ‘sufficient’
Necessary Condition- circumstance in whose absence the event in question cannot occur. In other words, the effect (E) never happens unless the purported necessary condition Cause (CN) is present.
If E, then CN
If no CN, then no E
Sufficient Condition- circumstance in whose presence the event in question must occur. In other words, the sufficient condition or cause (CS) never occurs without the effect (E).
If CS, then E
If no E, then no CS
As an example, fire is a sufficient condition for smoke. If there is a fire, there will be smoke. And if there is no smoke, there can be no fire.
Note: effect E can occur even when condition CS is not present – this is because CS is a sufficient, but not necessary, condition for E. Put different, there may be causes of E other then CS
Jumping is a sufficient, but not a necessary, condition for leaving the ground. Jumping will cause us to leave the ground – however, the fact that we are not on the ground does not automatically mean that we jumped- there are many other ways of leaving the ground.
or simply the Comparative Method.
If and only if statements
2.2.4. A CRITIQUE OF MILLS METHODS
Required Assumptions to Draw Valid Inferences from Mills Methods
– The casual process must be deterministic.
– There can be no interaction effects.
– There can only be one cause of the outcome.
– All of the possible causes must be identified.
– All the instances of the phenomena that could ever occur have been observed by us or all the unobserved instances (including future instances) must be just like the instances we have observed.
– D>$>D
2.3.1. AN INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC
2.4. SCIENCE AND FALSIFICATION – Science is a collection of statements about how the world works
1. Question
2. Theory of Model
3. Implications (Hypothesis)
4. Observe the World (Test Hypothesis)
5. Evaluation
3.0 WHAT IS POLITICS
1. Exit- You accept that there has been a deleterious change in your environment and you alter your behavior to optimize in the new environment.
2. Voice– You use your voice (complain, protest, or take direct action) to try and change the environment back to its original condition.
3. Loyalty– You accept the fact that your environment has changed and make no change to your behavior.
4.0. THE ORIGINS OF MODERN STATE
1. Contractarian– the creation of the state helps to solve political disputes that citizens might have with one another. The state emerges to help individuals in situations where decentralized cooperation is likely to be difficult. This usually leader to conflict between citizen and state.
2. Predatory– focuses on the potential conflicts of interest that exist between citizens and the state
WEBER– “Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force”
TILLY-“States are “relatively centralized, differentiated organizations, the officials of which, more or less, successfully claim control over the chief concentrated means of violence within a population inhabiting a large contiguous territory”
NORTH-“A state is an organization with a comparative advantage in violence, extending over a geographic area whose boundaries are determined by its power to tax constituents
4.3. THE CONTRACTARIAN VIEW OF THE STATE
Early modern political thinkers: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau- engaged in the thought of experiments to help them think more clearly
HOBBES – “War of every man against every man” “solitary, poor, nasty, british, and short”
Works Cited
Michael Sodaro.Comparative Politics: A Global Introduction. McGraw-Hill. (May 3, 2007)
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