Main Theories In Political Science: MAIN THEORIES

By MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU

The "Study Skills" collection offers the reader the essential tools for a correct pedagogical approach to the student.

Essential topics such as reading, writing, text comprehension, summaries, spelling, tests, concept maps and many more are presented here.

 

Among other topics, The Greeks: Plato And Aristotle, Machiavelli, The Contractualists: Hobbes, Locke And Rousseau, Marxism, Weber, will be addressed here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LA BISAGRA STUDY SKILLS
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201256678

MAURICIO ENRIQUE FAU

Mauricio Enrique Fau nació en Buenos Aires en 1965. Se recibió de Licenciado en Ciencia Política en la Universidad de Buenos Aires. Cursó también Derecho en la UBA y Periodismo en la Universidad de Morón. Realizó estudios en FLACSO Argentina. Docente de la UBA y AUTOR DE MÁS DE 3.000 RESÚMENES de Psicología, Sociología, Ciencia Política, Antropología, Derecho, Historia, Epistemología, Lógica, Filosofía, Economía, Semiología, Educación y demás disciplinas de las Ciencias Sociales. Desde 2005 dirige La Bisagra Editorial, especializada en técnicas de estudio y materiales que facilitan la transición desde la escuela secundaria a la universidad. Por intermedio de La Bisagra publicó 38 libros. Participa en diversas ferias del libro, entre ellas la Feria Internacional del Libro de Buenos Aires y la FIL Guadalajara.

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Bobbio, Norberto

POLITICAL SCIENCE

Political science in a broad and narrow sense.

›  Political science in the broad sense has to do with the systematic, rigorous, empirical and rational study of political phenomena and structures. It thus differs from political opinions

›  Political science in the strict sense is related to the empirical science of politics, with paradigm or model in the most developed empirical science (physics and biology). It differs from any prescriptive (the ought to be world of values) and non-descriptive search, such as that of political philosophy, since this is non-operational and inapplicable, a thinking that is not to be applied. In Political Science, on the other hand, theory refers to research.

Characteristics of contemporary political science

The classical authors (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel) spoke of ideal republics, utopias and idealizations of already existing regimes. On the other hand, for political science in the strict sense, political science is only that which tends to the formulation of typologies, generalizations, general theories and laws relative to political phenomena, based on the study of history, that is, on factual analysis (of the facts), such as those made by Aristotle, Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Tocqueville and others.

Political science as a discipline emerged in the 19th century under the control of positivism, but Marxism and Social Darwinism also participated. There, political science becomes independent of law, since before, from Hobbes to Kant, it appears only as a part of natural law, where the State is a legal entity created by a juridical act (contract), and which creates law (positive law). The first to make this distinction were Gumplowicz and Mosca.

Political science developed at the beginning of the 20th century in the USA, under the influence of behaviorism, which states that political science analyzes the behavior of individuals and groups that act politically. In terms of research techniques, there is a shift from the exclusive use of historical data to the increasingly frequent use of direct or field observation, which produced a quantification of political science (surveys and interviews). The number of data has increased enormously. There is also a broadening of the cultural horizons of political scientists, overcoming traditional Europeanism.

Its development conditions

The growth of data stimulated comparative policy studies on a much larger scale, but it is wrong to speak of the comparative method as if it were equivalent to the experimental, historical and statistical methods, because comparative policy is not limited to comparison, and because the latter is used by the other methods.

The main operations of Political Science

The TASKS PERFORMED BY POLITICAL SCIENCE are the following:

›  Classifications, e.g., typologies of regimes (Aristotle's pure and impure forms of government), forms of legitimate power (Weber's traditional, legal and charismatic).

›  Generalizations, e.g., power as a unifying concept for all political phenomena

›  Hypothesis, for example, that a certain social economic development corresponds to a certain political development.

›  Regularities or uniformities, for example, the theory of elites, which states that in any regime it is always an organized minority, or a number of minorities that fight among themselves, that governs.

›  Laws, e.g., Michels' Iron Law of Oligarchy.

›  Laws of tendency, e.g., the gradual extinction of the state in the so-called transitional state in Marx.

›  Theories, e.g., Easton's General Theory of Systems

Explanations and forecasts

Explaining is no longer just looking for one or a few factors, but today Political Science is based on multivariate analysis, which is good but more complex.

Since Political Science is at the stage of elaboration of EXPLANATION (and having thus overcome mere description), it is still immature for predictions, although there are prophecies (the possible), which should not be confused with utopias (the impossible).

Difficulties inherent to Political Science

Futurology is the product of the scientific attitude towards the world, while utopia arises from the philosophical imagination. Although political science is thematically subsumed in other disciplines (sociology, economics, culture), the latter do not need the former, which is equivalent to the relationship between physics and biology.

In Political Science, experimentation is impossible (for example, a peasant revolt in a laboratory), which is common to all social sciences; and this derives from the fact that man is teleological (he has ends, which refers to the contribution of psychology), symbolic (which makes it more difficult to know dead or primitive languages) and ideological (values and motivations that must be unveiled by social and political research).

The problem of evaluation

That is to say that these factors make it impossible to study a man in the same way as a cell or a stone, which do not feel, think or give an opinion. The evaluation (without values), as a guarantee of objectivity that characterizes science, is very difficult to achieve in political science. But objectivity is not the same as indifference.

The real development of political science is guided by the ideal of a scientific policy, that is, of a political action founded on the increasingly rigorous knowledge of the objective laws of the development of society, and therefore not abandoned to the case or the intuition of political actors.

The goal is a non-ideologized policy for the realization of a more just society. For this, the ideology of science policy itself must be analyzed.

Bobbio, Norberto

POLICY

The classical and modern meaning of politics

The term POLITICS is taken from ARISTOTHELES, who derives it from POLIS and everything that has to do with the CITY (citizen, civil, public, sociable, social, etc.).

Then POLITICS was taken to mean everything related to the State and its activities of which the polis is sometimes subject (laws, distributions, dominion) and sometimes object (conquering, maintaining, extending state power).

In the Modern Age, POLITICS is replaced by POLITICAL SCIENCE or STATE SCIENCE, losing its original meaning.

Classical typology of forms of power

The concept of POLITICS , understood as a form of human activity or praxis, is linked to that of POWER, as a means to obtain advantages (HOBBES), means to achieve the desired effects (RUSSELL), imposition of one individual over another.

Political power implies power of man over another man, not over nature. For example, ruler-governed, sovereign-subject, state-citizens, order-obedience, etc., and is different from despotic power (in the interest of the one who commands) and paternal power (in the interest of the one who obeys), because it is in the interest of both.

For LOCKE, while the foundation of paternal power is nature, that of despotic power is punishment for crime, and that of civil power, consensus (contract) - but which does not contemplate bad governments (based on paternalism or despotism).

The modern typology of forms of power

›  ECONOMIC POWER⇨use of the possession of certain goods, in a situation of scarcity, to induce those who do not possess them to behave in a certain way.

›  IDEOLOGICAL POWER ⇨is based on the influence of the ideas issued by people with authority in society and that fulfill the process of socialization in order to make society cohesive.

›  POLITICAL POWER ⇨is based on the possession of the instruments by which physical force is exercised; it is coercive power. These powers divide society into rich and poor, knowledgeable and ignorant, strong and weak, and - in general - superior and inferior.

Political power

All contemporary social theories divide the social system into the organization of productive forces, consensus and coercion. But in MARXIST THEORY the EMPHASIS is on the ECONOMIC (structure-superstructure), while in traditional theory it is on the ideological (spiritual power-temporal power).

For there to be POLITICAL POWER, the use of FORCE must be MONOPOLIC and LEGITIMATE.

For HOBBES, one passes from the apolitical state (state of nature) to the political state (civil state) when individuals renounce the right to use each one's own force, in order to delegate it to a single authorized body.

For MARX, the ruling class guarantees its domination with FORCE: every State is a dictatorship.

For WEBER, legitimate physical force drives the action of the political system. The supremacy of political power as an instrument of power is given in that - while historically economic and ideological power is repeatedly divided - political power is indivisible, because it would do away with the State itself.

The main CHARACTERISTICS OF POLITICAL POWER are: exclusivity, force, universality of its decisions, inclusiveness of norms.

Political power can be self-limiting; for example, a secular State that does not influence religion, or a liberal State that withdraws from the economy. If it has no limits, it is a totalitarian state.

The end of politics

If political power guarantees the domination of a given social group, the ends of politics will be the ends of the ruling class (Marxist-influenced thinking).

The purposes of politics are as many as the goals that an organized group sets for itself, according to the times and circumstances.

THE POLITICAL IS NOT DEFINED BY A SINGLE END, BUT BY A SINGLE MEANS: THE USE OF FORCE.

Although there is a general end (order), it is only the sine qua non condition for achieving all the other ends.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY has given prescriptions and not descriptions about POLITICS. For example, Aristotle (the end of politics is the common good) or Plato (the end of politics is justice).

For others POLITICS is both means and end at the same time, power is an end in itself. But this confusion derives from the fact that there is NO SPECIFIC END OF POLITICS.

Politics as a friend-enemy relationship

For CARL SCHMITT, the sphere of politics coincides with the sphere of the FRIEND-ENEMY RELATIONSHIP. Its function would be to unite and defend friends, and to disunite and fight enemies. As long as there is POLITICS, society will be divided into friends and enemies, and there will be conflicts of particular intensity, which are political conflicts. This is compatible with the idea -of contractualist roots- that political power, as the use of force, resolves conflicts avoiding the disintegration of the State.

Political and social

POLITICAL AND SOCIAL are different spheres: CHRISTIANISM took away the religious sphere from politics (spiritual power is something different from temporal power) and bourgeois mercantilism took away the dominion over the economy (civil society is different from political society).

THE STATE (THE POLITICAL) IS SEPARATED FROM RELIGION AND THE MARKET. The liberal state is different from the absolutist state. According to theory, it can even disappear if coercive power is no longer needed.

Politics and morals

P olitics is different from MORAL: there are apolitical moral actions and immoral political actions. Thus, MAQUIAVELO PLANS THE AUTONOMY OF POLITICS: the criterion to see if a political action is good or bad is different than in a moral action. THE END JUSTIFIES THE MEANS is equivalent to an ethics of responsibility (WEBER), while the moral belongs to the ethics of conviction.

MORALITY AND POLITICS ARE INCOMPARABLE BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFERENT ETHICAL UNIVERSES.

Politics as group ethics

Morality has to do with the ethics of the individual and politics, with the ethics of the group. Thus, the obligation in politics and the obligation for the group are different from the obligation in morals and the obligation for the individual.

THE GREEKS: PLATO AND ARISTOTLE

Plato (428-347 BC) : Greek philosopher, disciple of Socrates , from whom he took the method of dialogue or dialectic . Unlike Socrates, P wrote his thought and did so in the form of Socratic dialogues (dialogues with Socrates) which was a literary genre widespread in his time. He proclaimed objective idealism , according to which ideas are eternal and the only real thing while the sensible world is nothing but a flux of changing images that barely reflect the reality of ideas. A case of this thesis is: Horses do not exist, the only thing that exists is the idea we have of horses, the horse itself. There is a dualism here, in the distinction between the world of ideas (the intelligible, timeless) and the sensible world, which is temporal. Knowledge of the essence of things is accessed by reason and not by perception . He wrote numerous works, including The Republic , in which he proposed an aristocratic model , according to which society should be governed by those who know the most: the philosophers. He distinguished three social classes , each with its own characteristics: 1- the rulers or magistrates, prudence, 2- the warriors, fortitude and, 3- the