Note:  Danziger invites you to read the Appendix; it’s a free country, but, at this time, I am not expecting you to read this material which is a bit complicated (though I may ask you to read sections later on or may present the material in a slightly friendlier fashion).

BS, GE

Points to ponder

• Our aim over the term is to explore politics as a means for resolving conflict and, to do so, it is necessary to lay a foundation by
  • Setting out some core concepts and assumptions that underlie politics, specifically
    • Values
    • Self-interest
    • Conflict and
    • Rationality
  • Introducing a concept of politics, one that will be developed more in the first section of the course
  • Laying out the principles of analysis that are used by political scientists to study politics including
    • The use of concepts and the process of conceptualization for their  use
    • Emphasizing the role of evidence in political analysis
• A major goal of this course is to develop your knowledge of political science concepts and the relationships between them
  • A concept is simply a name for a thing
    • We stipulate certain concepts (as we are about to do with respect to values, self-interest, conflict, rationality, power, and politics) to indicate that these are key terms in political analysis
    • Each concept, because it is only a name for a thing, needs to be accompanied by a definition (or, more formally, a conceptual definition) which is carefully formulated to make as clear as possible to what the concept refers
    • Much confusion in political science and throughout life occurs because concepts are not carefully defined or are used in a way that is inconsistent with how they have been defined, and that is one of the reasons why you are admonished throughout the course to "BS" which means—no, not that!—to “be specific”
      • As one uses a concept, one should indicate how that concept is defined
      • Of course, being a free country and all, everyone has the  option of defining a concept differently, but it is in any event necessary to give a thoughtful definition to any concept used
      • Definitions are not right or wrong, but are more or less useful
      • Dictionary definitions are often not very useful in academic study because most definitions are designed for everyday conversation and writing, not for the specialized study of topics in political science or other disciplines; commenting on a recent trend of Supreme Court Justices resorting to dictionary definitions [Justices turning more frequently to dictionary, NYT 13 Jun 11], the editor at large of the dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, said “Dictionary definitions are written with a lot of things in mind, but rigorously circumscribing the exact meanings and connotations of terms is not usually one of them.”
      • All of which is not to say that dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster Online, can’t be a useful resource
    • When Danziger (15) discusses the need to “operationalize the key concepts” as one of the tasks in empirical research, he reinforces the point that meaningful discussion of anything is impossible if no one knows what a concept means
• Core concepts and assumptions
  • Values are those things--such as health, wealth, skill, affection, and respect (Lasswell & Kaplan 1950)--on which people place a certain value, things people want or prize to a greater or lesser extent
    • It may be, indeed probably is, the case that different people want different things in different amounts; all we are saying is that all people have wants, things they value
    • These values have two functions
      • Values motivate behavior—given some thing a person values, they will act to get more of that thing
      • Values influence perceptions—placing a high value on wealth, say, a person is likely to view an issue in terms of its implications for becoming wealthier
  • In terms of self-interest, we assume that each person is self-interested in that they perceive the world in terms of themselves and the values they hold and act in such a way as to make themselves better off (securing those things they value)
    • Self-interestedness is not necessarily selfishness:  a soldier, say, who values respect or, another value, rectitude (the sense of doing right, being righteous) might sacrifice herself (and her well-being) to protect others
  • The central problem we face is one of scarcity, which is to say the demand for values exceeds the supply (only one person can be Miss America; Jerusalem can only be controlled by the Arabs, the Israelis, or some joint authority, but not simultaneously by two or by all three; either women will have the unlimited opportunity to abort a fetus or abortion will be limited if only to a greater or lesser extent; oil will cost a certain amount per barrel, and as the price increases sellers will have more wealth and buyers will have less)
  • Because of a scarcity of values (or a scarcity of valued things), conflict--defined as a stressful, tense situation in which two or more actors are in disagreement (fight) because of their different values, different preferences about the distribution of values--is a fundamental, pervasive feature of our world
  • Finally, we assume rationality, by which we mean to say that most people most of the time behave in a manner calculated to help them secure those things they value; while there are clearly people who are irrational and while rational people sometimes make errors (miscalculate), we assume that in most cases an actor will, given whatever ends (values) he seeks, choose a means that should move him toward his preferred end
    • An important consequence of this assumption of rationality is that political behavior is not random and so can be explained
    • Actually, the argument is a little more complicated because rational behavior is not simply a matter of choosing a strategy based on a goal but depends also on such things as the actor’s information and beliefs and tolerance for risk
    • Note that this conceptualization of rationality is related to but still different from the way Danziger uses it in his discussion of personal thought (p. 13):  in both cases, there is reference to a cognitive or mental process but Danziger means here the use of pure logic to deduce a conclusion where I introduced rationality to characterize a particular behavior as having been chosen as the best means to achieve a particular end
• Given conflict, which arises out of a scarcity of values, political science is the study of how rational humans seek to maximize their share of values in conflicts
  • As we will see in the coming days, people use power to prevail in conflicts, to secure those values they seek
    • Though we will develop this concept further, for now we can define (following Dahl 1956) power as "A's ability to cause B to do what A wants him to do, even though B prefers something else"
    • As we will also see in the coming days, there are two essential means of using power, violence (physical force) and politics (defined as the legitimated set of activities directed toward the making of binding decisions for any community)
      • Note that Danziger (4) allows for a number of alternative definitions and then settles (p. 4) on politics as “the process through which power and influence are used in the promotion of certain values and interests”
        • As will become clearer in the next few days, Danziger’s definition covers both violence and politics as defined just above
        • I want to distinguish politics (defined as the legitimated set of activities directed toward the making of binding decisions for any community) from violence, and so we will consider the circumstances when political means for resolving conflict (persuasion, bargaining, and voting) are used and when violence is used instead
      • This is a nice illustration of the point that definitions are neither right nor wrong and so different people may have different ways of conceptualizing a thing (and this is fine so long as they explicitly define what they mean when they use a particular concept); at the same time, in developing a new, different way to conceptualize some thing, one wants to show why the new definition is more useful than another
• Why should you believe anything I say?  And, more important, why should I believe anything you say?  We should credit the assertions of others only if they are able to provide evidence to support their arguments--that’s the “GE” in BS, GE:  give examples
  • The social scientific method that Danziger (14-21) describes as an approach to understanding politics is founded on the systematic use of evidence (data)
  • Throughout his book, Danziger uses data and other evidence to reach his conclusions
  • Throughout this course, I will use data and other evidence to illustrate points and support arguments
  • You, too, are expected to provide examples to support assertions you make in writing essays and in on-line discussions

Questions to consider

• How do normative statements/arguments differ from empirical statements/arguments?  Given the following topics, how might one formulate an empirical statement and a normative statement with respect to each one:
  • US policy in Iraq
  • Illegal immigration into the US
  • Research efforts by the Iranian government on nuclear energy
  • Banning head scarves on Muslim women in French schools
  • Dry counties in Arkansas
• What is the difference between an explanatory statement and a descriptive statement?  Are explanatory and descriptive statements normative or empirical?  Given each of the topics in the previous bullet, how might one formulate an explanatory statement and then a descriptive statement?
• How does Danziger’s discussion (pp. 13-14) of the statement “all men are created equal” illustrate the importance of defining concepts?