PS 201: Great Issues of Politics

CLASS 1:
FOUNDATIONS OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Basic Concepts in the Study of Politics

1.) Order and Authority (Should we have a state?)
2.) Justice (What should that state look like?)
3.) Politics (What is it, how do we study it?)

Order and Authority

Should we have a government? How do we justify it?
Social Contract Theory:

Society as organized as if a contract had been formed between the

citizen and the sovereign power, [which] grounds the nature of the
obligations of each to the other. (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy)

Why would we want to enter into social contract?

Thomas Hobbes: state of nature, security

John Locke: to protect our rights and liberty
John Rawls: to promote fairness and equality

Three means to order: force, influence, and authority

Justice
Definition: Quality of being just, impartial fair;

establishment or determination of rights according

to rules of law and equity; confirming to principle or
ideal of righteousness.
Political justice: What do we owe to each other?
Sense of word: you get what you deserve or are
rightly due, impartiality.
Obvious problems: WHAT do you deserve, is it based
on need or merit; is impartiality even possible?

For example, freedom vs. equality, freedom vs. security

Approaches to Justice
In general, two approaches to justice:

1.) Transcendental Institutionalism theory-driven, how can

institutions of government ensure justice in society?

Examples: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant: logical arguments for

ideal states which achieve their versions of justice.

2.) Realization-Focused Comparison results-driven, look at society

as it is (not how we wish it to be), and work backwards to achieve
justice.

Examples: Marx (economic, class-based), Mary Wollstonecraft

(feminist perspective).

*Note* not mutually exclusive: Marx uses a great deal of

theory, Hobbes examines the realist state of nature.

However, Marx is looking at societies that already exist
and critiquing their lack of justice, while Hobbes is
imagining a theoretically perfectly just state.

Order and Justice as Practical Concepts

Justice and Order inexorably tied: a state cannot

actualize justice without order (just a theory); and a

state loses order if it is perceived as unjust.

Why? Because legitimacy, defined as an exercise of political

power in a way that is voluntarily accepted by a community, is
crucial to order, and flow from the perception of order.
Especially true in a constitutional democracy/republic, where
the people retain sovereignty (independence) over their
government (authoritarian regimes are the opposite: the
government retains sovereignty over their people.)

Politics: What is it?

Chapter One: an essentially contested concept that

means many things to many people:

1.) Politics as deliberation and compromise.

2.) Politics as the will to power. Power is undoubtedly a
major part of politics, and the view is of politics as a perpetual
struggle.

Both are addressed by the classic definition of politics by Harold

Laswell: who gets what, when, and how.

3.) Politics as a negative concept: goes to legitimacy and how

citizens perceive their government and their role in it.
4.) Politics as a means to a greater end: total equality in
society, a classless society, etc.

Politics: Why study it?

Why study politics?
Self-improvement (Aristotle: man is a political animal)
Self-knowledge (moral development of citizens crucial to
democracy)
Self-interest (better understanding of dealing with the system
and politics crucial to 21st century)
Studying it: Two approaches: Departments of

Political Science vs. Departments of Government

example

Different theories that help us view the complex political

world. Some examples: elite theory, pluralist theory, Marxism,
realism, etc.