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CHAPTER ONE

POLITICS AND KNOWLEDGE


Definitions of Politics.
1) Politics is the exercise of power.
2) Politics is the public allocation of things
that are valued
3) Politics is the resolution of conflicts.
4) Politics is the competition among
individuals and groups pursuing their
own interests.
5) Politics is the determination of who
gets what, how, and when.
Politics is a human activity through which power
and influence are used in the promotion of
certain values and interests.

- [Explain the distinction between private and


public aspects of life]

Politics is associated with those aspects of life


which have public significance. Other aspects of
life are private and thus are beyond the domain
of politics.

Some examples of issues which have public


signiificance:

- how much of your income you must give to


government as income tax.
- how much social and economic benefits the
Types of Political knowledge

Individual understanding of politics.

- differs from person to person,


- determines our understanding about politics
and shapes our decisions,
- may be limited,
- may be familiar to most people,
- may be obtained by various ways.
Some Political statements that can be
used to measure political knowledge:

1- Government should attempt to create equality through the


distribution of wealth, taxation and the provision of public
services.
2- Political participation should be limited based on gender,
race or class.
3- Democracy is the most effective form of government.
4- Everyone should receive a free education.
5- The rich have more political influence than the poor.
When you read or hear such statements you
might..

a- ignore them
b- accept them
c- reject them
d- try to evaluate them
Political Analysis is an attempt
to describe and explain politics
and political facts.

Truth Score 0 100


What Truth Score would give
these statements?
Political science is a set of techniques,
concepts, and approaches whose objective is to
increase the clarity and accuracy of an
understanding about the political world.

Three general types of political knowledge.

1- Description of political facts

2- Explanations of how and why politics


occurs as it does.

3- Prescription of what should happen in any


area of political activity.
1) Description: Political knowledge includes descriptive
responses to "what" questions. (descriptions may be
certain or uncertain)

Certain descriptions:

- Barak Obama is the President of the


United States

- France is a member of the European


Union

- The Soviet Union dissolved in 1991


Uncertain Descriptions

Israel
posseses nuclear
weapons?

Crimea is a part of Russia?

- Basher al-Assad is the leader of


Syria?
2) Explanation: Why something happens?

- Why do wealthy countries still have high levels of


poverty?

- What is the cause of inflation?

- Why are governments overthrown?


3) Prescription: What Should Happen

"Statements about politics often include


claims or assumptions that certain
choices and actions are more desirable
than others".

A prescription is a value judgment that


indicates what should occur and should be
done. So prescription deals with
"normative" political knowledge.
Prescriptive Statements
-- Everyone should have the right to
vote.
-- No state should violate the
sovereignty of another
-- There should be international
humanitarian intervention
-- The minimum wage should be
higher
-- Taxes should not be used to support
unemployed citizens
Normative political knowledge combines three
levels of understanding

1- Your descriptive knowledge of certain facts.

2-Your explanatory knowledge about why certain


outcome occurs.

3-Your priorities among competing values


Should the unemployed
benefit from taxation?
descriptive knowledge
(What are the economic resources
available to a society)
explanatory knowledge

(The causes of unemployment)


Priorities

(equality, individual rights, lower


taxes)
Sources of Political Knowledge
1)authority 2)personal thought 3)science

1- Authority
a) Specific authority sources: political
knowledge derives from a parent, teacher,
friend, or famous person.

b) General authority sources: leaders, media,


the internet, books, personal values.

c) Everyone as authority: (common sense)


If virtually everyone seems to agree on a
fact about politics, there is little reason for
you to disagree or challenge that fact.
Right?
2. Personal Thought

Some facts are correct for us because they are so obvious


for us. Here you don't rely on an outside authority. The
individual can use their powers of thought to determine
what they know about the political world. Such knowledge
can be based on rationality, intuition, and personal
experiences.

a- rationality: When you think that a certain fact is true


because it is logical for you, you do not need further
justification. For example, you may believe that human
beings are equal or unequal.
b- intuition: is the second form of personal thought. Here,
your knowledge is based on feelings, on a sense of
understanding rather than on reason.
c- personal experience: You can be convinced that
something is true, because of your own experience.

3. Science, Quantitative Analysis

Unlike authority and personal thought as sources of political


knowledge "science uses explicit methods that attempt to
enable different people to agree about what they know."
Characteristics of scientific method:
-Search for regularities
-Science is empirical:
-Science is cumulative
-Science is testable.

*Applying scientific method in Political Science.


Knowledge clause: In a democracy men are more
likely to vote than women.
This issue requires an analysis of gender and voting. Is it true that men are
more likely than women to vote? How can we analyze this claim by means of
the Scientific method.
In order to apply scientific method to analyse political knowledge we can
follow the following steps:

1- Examine the existing evidence. We find what has been writtien about
voting by Political Scientists. We read relevant studies, books, journal
articles.

2- Making a hypothesis: You identify or describe what you are going to do in


a precise manner. men are more likely to vote than women.

3- Operationalizing key concepts: This means that you specify exactly what
each concept means and how they might be measured. (what is meant by
voting and democracy)

4- Gathering appropriate data: You need a strategy for colleting evidence


that is valid and reliable. You must collect data about specific elections in
one or more democracies. The relevant data can be gathered from books or
reports or you may conduct a field study to measure the phenomena through a
survey.
5- Analyzing the evidence: You compare the results obtained from different
elections.

1976 1996
men women men women
voted 77% 67% 53 56
did not voted 23% 33% 47 44

6- Making inferences for using a statistical technique. This technique


helps you to decide whether the difference in the data for women and men
is greater than might expected by chance.

- Is the evidence sufficient? (men are more likely to vote than women)
- Is it possible to make generalization about gender and voting based on
only two elections?
- What is our inference about gender and voting?
Our answer will probably be based on the idea that men are more likely to vote
than women, but if you get data for other presidential elections you would
discover that women have voted at a higher rate than men in every US
presidential elections since 1980, and at a lower rate in every election prior to
1980.

------ Our first inference is incorrect.


------ Things can change. For this reason generalizations must be made with care.
------ All important variables should be considered. For example, education level
or social status, profession, ethnicity etc., may affect voting behavior.

7- Conclusion: It requires extensive data, careful analysis, and consideration of


several alternative explanations.
Qualitative Analysis
Is directed toward the exploration of
a subject in an effort to gather
understanding rather than proving
or disproving a hypothesis
Qualitative researchers aim to
gather an in-depth understanding of
human behavior and the reasons for
it.
The pursuit of knowledge which may
be used to build a hypothesis which
Types of Qualitative
Inquiry
Ethnography, grounded theory,
phenomenology, philosophy, ethical
inquiry, critical social research,
historical research.
Qualitative Questions:
questions about meaning
how people make sense of the world
questions that illuminate context

questions that investigate processes


Sub fields of Political Science

1- Comparative Politics: Focuses on similarities and differences in Political


processes and structures.

2- International Relations: Focuses on the relations between states, non-state


actors and international phenomenon such as economics, globalisation and
conflict.

3- Political theory or Political Philosophy focuses on the ideas and debates


dealing with important Political questions. (what is political justice? Equality?
democracy? Human rights?)

4- Multi Disciplinary Sub fields


Political science links with other fields of inquiry that borrows and adapts
ideas from other disciplines.
Comparative Politics
Comparative analysis of different
countries and political systems.
Comparisons may be based on a
variety of factors: Size, economy,
demographics, geography etc.
International Relations
International Relations has its origins in the
inter-war period 1918 1939. It was founded as
a discipline to understand the causes of conflict.
It has since expanded to incorporate a broad
number of issues not just related to foreign
policy and conflict.
It is composed of a vast variety of theoretical
concepts from the traditional, such as Realism
and Liberalism, to the more nuanced theoretical
frameworks such as constructivism, feminism,
post-positivism , critical thought and post-
structuralism.
Political Theory
Political Philosophy
Born from the philosophical thought of
the ancient world political theory
attempts to answer complex questions
regarding human social relations.
All politics is tied to some philosophical
/theoretical concept that provides the
framework for thinking about how people
should be governed and interact with
each other in collective and individual
terms.
Consciously or unconsciously people are
engaged in theory and philosophy at some
Multi-disciplinary
subfields
Increasingly the study of Political
Science is tied to a number of
subfields.
Some connections may appear
obviously inter-related: economics,
sociology, history, law, environment,
gender studies, psychology.
However some are more novel:
biology, neuroscience, anthropology,
physics
Criticisms of Political
Science
First criticism: Political Science
is not a Science.
Natural Scientists may argue
that Political Science is not a
real science in comparison to
chemistry, biology or applied
physics.

Is this valid? Yes and no.


A fully developed Science includes four
elements:

- Central concepts, which identify and name


key phenomena.

- Theories, which are sets of systematically


related generalizations that provide
explanations and predictions about the
lineages between certain concepts.

- Rules of interpretation, which indicate the


methods that are used to understand
whether the explanations and predictions
provided by the theory are right or wrong.
Second criticism: Its subject matter
defies (disregard) generalizations:
it is argued that political world is too
complex and contradictable for
systematic generalization.
Third criticism: Political Scientists
cannot be objective:
It is argued that the issues chosen for
study are influenced by the researches
and his/her social realty such as
culture, ideas, life experiences and so
on.
Fourth criticism: Its practice diverts

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