Political Science: The Systematic Study of Politics Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Define political science. Describe the scientific study of politics. The systematic study of the process of who gets what, when, and how— political science —investigates the reasons behind the decisions governments make. For example, political scientists investigate the degree of control governments choose to exercise over various forms of communication, like your smartphone. Political scientists examine both the ways individuals and groups seek to influence governmental action and the ways governmental decisions in turn affect individuals and groups. Political scientists may not have lab coats or electron microscopes, but like other types of scientists, they use theory, logic, and evidence in an attempt to answer questions, to make predictions, or to arrive at conclusions. Some political scientists strive to understand the fundamental laws of politics in much the same way theoretical physicists seek to comprehend the cosmos for pure knowledge. These political scientists try to uncover the universal principles of how humans and their institutions aim to prevail in political conflicts. But most political scientists accept that human behavior is not entirely deterministic (that is, perfectly predictable), so they instead look for patterns that may enable them to predict in general how humans and their institutions interact. What Logic Brings Palestinian and Israeli Women Together to March for Peace? When women on both sides of the conflict in Israel grew weary of its human consequences, they decided to take matters into their own hands in 2017. In human societies, there are many sources of and paths to political conflict and its resolution. Other political scientists are more like chemists, who may use their knowledge to develop and improve medicines or create more deadly toxins. These political scientists aspire to improve the institutions or processes of government. Some uses of political science are not so benign. Motivated actors can and have used political science knowledge to manipulate voters and suppress vulnerable populations. When people understand how political science works, they are less susceptible to such manipulation and suppression. So what is scientific about politics? One way to think about whether politics is “scientific” is to focus on the content of politics. Does political behavior follow general laws—that is, does it align with universal statements about nature, based on empirical observations? Does politics have the equivalent of Isaac Newton ’s laws of motion (for example, Newton’s second law is “force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration,” and his third law is “to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”)? Not precisely, although political scientists have at times claimed that such laws exist. The sticking point is the word “universal.” Force always equals mass multiplied by acceleration. To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. In politics, it seems, virtually nothing is always the case. If one defines science as a body of universal laws about an unchanging universe, then politics is not and cannot be a science. Politics is not the same as physics. Empirical political science seeks to identify regularities—what is likely to happen given certain conditions. Political science is probabilistic rather than deterministic . An event is deterministic if it is possible to say, “If this happens, that will happen.” Events are probabilistic if one can say only, “If this happens, that is likely to happen.” The sun coming up in the east? Deterministic. Will it rain in the morning? Probabilistic. Will incumbents win their next bid for reelection? Political science gives us the ability to estimate the probability that they will win (again, given the rules, the reality, and the choices those incumbents make). So science does not require universal laws that explain an unchanging universe. What science does require is a way to learn about the world around us: this way is the scientific method . The scientific method seeks to understand the world by testing hypotheses (for example “The world is round”) by systematically collecting data sufficient to test that hypothesis and by making these hypotheses and data available to others so that your work can be challenged or verified. Political science uses the scientific method to understand the political world; political science carefully and methodically uses logic and evidence to find the answers to political questions. A hypothesis is a tentative statement about reality that can be tested to determine whether it is true or false—or, in practice, supported or unsupported based on the evidence. “A candidate’s ethnicity influences the likelihood that they will be elected” is an example of a hypothesis: ethnicity either does or does not influence election outcomes. An important task of the political scientist is to determine whether the evidence supports the hypothesis that they test. Neil Degrasse Tyson: Analogy for the Scientific Method In this video clip, astrophysicist and author Neil Degrasse Tyson relates a humorous anecdote about an everyday experience in a coffee shop that illustrates the basic principles of the scientific method. The answers scientists find are always tentative, or uncertain. A hypothesis is supported rather than true or unsupported rather than false. Additional research may yield different answers as theories or methods improve or better data emerges, but also because political behavior itself can change in response to what people learn about it. The knowledge, for example, that politicians are likely to act in a certain way given certain circumstances might lead politicians to change their behavior if they believe that doing so will gain them an advantage. The specific knowledge (“politicians in this situation will behave in that way”) may become obsolete even if a broader general principle (“politicians will act strategically to advance their goals”) still appears to be true. There are two main, interrelated types of political science: normative political science (also called political philosophy or political theory) and empirical political science . Political scientists systematically study political phenomena—the actions of individuals, groups, institutions, and countries as they seek to obtain their goals or express their identities. That those who study politics are scientific does necessarily not mean that they can identify universal laws, although many have tried. What is important is that political scientists use the scientific method to understand the political world. In the scientific method, researchers try to develop accurate depictions of the world through logic, reason, and evidence while making their techniques and data open to scrutiny and verification by other researchers. In their research, political scientists must always be tentative about their conclusions: further study might indicate that their conclusions need to be revised in the light of new evidence or techniques. hypothesis a tentative explanation for a reality that can be tested political science the systematic study of political phenomena using empirical or philosophical methods scientific method the processes used to conduct empirical research

Social Sciences


Normative Political Science Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Identify what normative political science seeks to do. Discuss the primary methods political philosophers use to answer their questions. List the three main ways normative political scientists have tried to answer questions like “What is a good citizen?” In politics, what is good and what is right? How should power be used? What is the public interest? These are tricky questions with multiple answers. One might think of the “good” as that which is beneficial or helpful and “right” as what is true or just. Power should be used to promote the public interest so that those in power use it to benefit the people. Normative political science seeks to understand the meaning, purposes, and goals of politics. It seeks to define how individuals should behave or how institutions should be constituted. Those who study these issues are referred to as political philosophers and share common interests with the broader discipline of philosophy. Normative political science considers an endless array of questions. What is a good citizen? Do human rights exist and, if so, what are they? Who should rule? What purpose should governments serve? Is there an ideal constitution and, if so, what is it? What is social justice? These questions cannot be answered by presenting evidence alone: there is no test that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt what a good citizen is or that any constitution is in fact ideal. So normative political science typically proceeds primarily by appealing to logic and reason. Consider the question “What is a good citizen?” Evidence alone cannot tell us what constitutes a good citizen. Is a good citizen the one who always obeys the laws or the one who challenges the laws they see as unjust? Reasonable people can—and do—disagree on this and almost all other questions in political theory. But in order to determine through logic and reason what it means to be a good citizen, evidence can guide judgments of whether citizens are good (for example, if citizens are observed doing bad things, they would not be good citizens). Normative theorists have tried to answer questions like “What is a good citizen?” in three main ways: focusing on the consequences of behavior, moral rules, or virtue. These new American citizens are being sworn in at a naturalization ceremony. What is a good citizen? (credit: “‘Celebrate Citizenship, Celebrate America’ Naturalization Ceremony at College of DuPage 2015 48” by COD Newsroom/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) One definition of a good citizen is someone who acts in ways that benefit society; that is, the benefits are a consequence of the citizen’s actions. A good citizen votes and pays taxes, for example, because both actions help to create stable and prosperous societies. In contrast, a bad citizen is one who breaks the law, to the extent that breaking the law harms other people. In this view, someone who speeds would be a bad citizen because speeding increases the likelihood of causing a crash and harming others, but someone who commits a “victimless crime,” such as smoking marijuana, would not be a bad citizen because they would not be harming anyone else. According to normative political science, a person should behave in ways that benefit society and do not harm it, and individuals should strive to be good citizens. A good ruler is one who helps the ruled rather than harming them. According to Aristotle, constitutions that “aim at the common advantage are correct and just . . . whereas those which aim only at the advantage of the rulers are deviant and unjust, because they involve despotic rule which is inappropriate for a community of free persons.” Fred Miller, “Aristotle's Political Theory,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017) , ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/. Philippines: What It Takes to Be a Good Citizen In this clip from the World Bank, Filipinos attending a conference answer the question “What does it take to be a good citizen?” Two challenges are central to this type of theorizing. What actions produce more benefit than harm, and what evidence supports these claims? For example, speeding is a risk to the driver and to others, but it may bring pleasure to the driver and enables them to get where they are going faster. Do the costs outweigh the benefits? Moreover, what counts as a benefit or a harm? Is it beneficial or harmful for citizens to monitor one another’s behavior for potential lawbreaking, for example? Philosophers, and not just political philosophers, attempt to identify a set of moral principles that good citizens should adopt. You can find an extensive discussion of the “good citizen” in Jack Crittenden and Peter Levine, “Civic Education,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/civic-education/. Similarly, they have attempted to identify principles governments should adhere to because those principles are moral. For example, a good citizen would treat others as they themselves would want to be treated (the so-called Golden Rule). A good citizen would not lie because lying is wrong. In practice, it has proven hard to identify rules that are universally consistent or accepted. Is it always wrong to lie? What if a government decides it must lie to an adversary in order to protect its own citizens? Does a good government not, as a rule, have an obligation to do just that? But does this then create a slippery slope in which governments believe they are justified in lying as a matter of course? Some normative political scientists seek to identify and understand character traits that are admirable in their own right. Rather than arguing that good citizens should tell the truth because lying harms the public interest or violates a universal moral principle, they argue that good citizens should tell the truth because a good person does not lie. According to this line of thinking, a government protects its citizens because doing so improves their lives and because it fulfills the duties of government, but also because doing so is what makes a good government. That is what good governments do. Political philosophers studying virtue seek to identify and define the virtues, as well as to discover their limits. Rosalind Hursthouse and Glen Pettigrove, “Virtue Ethics,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2018), ed. Edward N. Zalta, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2018/entries/ethics-virtue/. For example, traits like bravery, integrity, humility, and kindness have been identified as possible sources of virtue. A good person, and a good citizen, is brave enough to stand up for the right, in opposition to the wrong. To do otherwise would be a sign of cowardice. But can a person be too brave, becoming foolhardy or rash, when standing up for what is right? These three types of normative reasoning—emphasizing consequences, rules, and virtue—overlap, but they represent distinctly different ways of thinking about politics and what ideal politics would be like. Although the questions they raise have been studied since ancient times, they remain relevant for us today and are still worthy of careful reflection. Normative political science, also called political philosophy, seeks to answer questions regarding the meaning, purposes, and goals of politics, such as “What is a good citizen?” or “What purposes should governments serve?” The answers to these questions cannot come from examining evidence alone; instead, political philosophers rely on reason and logic. Three common approaches to normative political science involve a focus on consequences (for example, the purpose of government is to provide benefits to its citizens), rules (for example, the purpose of government is to protect rights), or virtue (so that the purpose of government is to produce virtuous citizens). Some of the main questions in normative theory are rooted in antiquity, but they remain relevant today. normative political science the systematic study of ideal goals, principles, and behaviors in politics; also called political philosophy

Social Sciences


Empirical Political Science Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Distinguish empirical political science from normative political science. Explain what facts are and why they may be disputed. Define generalization and discuss when generalizations can be helpful. Unlike normative political science, empirical political science is based not on what should be, but on what is. It seeks to describe the real world of politics, distinguishing between what is predictable and what is idiosyncratic. Empirical political science attempts to explain and predict. Klaus von Beyme, “Political Theory: Empirical Political Theory,” in A New Handbook of Political Science , eds. Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingeman (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003). Empirical political science assumes that facts exist: actual, genuine, verifiable facts. Empirical questions are ones that can be answered by factual evidence. The number of votes a candidate receives is an empirical matter: votes can be counted. Counting votes accurately so that each candidate receives the actual number of votes that were cast for them can be difficult. Different ways of counting can lead to slightly different counts, but a correct number actually exists. Empirical political science, as described here, is not different from other applications of the scientific method , whether one is examining rocks in geology, birds in botany, or the human mind in psychology. In every science-based course you take, you will observe systematic efforts to develop knowledge by using data to test hypotheses. OpenStax Biology, a text generally assigned in introductory college biology courses, begins with a description of science and the scientific method, noting that “one of the most important aspects of this method is the testing of hypotheses . . . by means of repeatable experiments” Mary Ann Clark, Matthew Douglas, and Jung Choi, Biology , 2nd ed. (Houston, TX: OpenStax, 2018), 1. Until recently, few political science theories could be tested through repeated experiments, so instead political scientists had to rely on repeated observations. Congressional elections in the United States are held every two years, for example, and they generate substantial data that can be used to test hypotheses. In recent years, however, political scientists have conducted more and more true experiments. Rebecca B. Morton and Kenneth C. Williams, “Experimentation in Political Science,” in The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology , eds. Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier, Henry E. Brady, and David Collier (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, August 2008), https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199286546.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199286546-e-14. Political science is connected to biology, and all other courses in science, through the use of the scientific method. A fact may be disputed. There may be genuine uncertainty as to what the facts really are—what the evidence really shows. Sometimes it is extremely difficult to gather the facts. Do space aliens exist? That is an empirical question. Either space aliens exist, or they do not. Some researchers claim to have evidence that space aliens are real, but their evidence is not universally, or even broadly, accepted. One side of this argument is correct, however, and the other is not. Evidence has not yet conclusively determined which is correct. John Gertz, “Maybe the Aliens Really Are Here,” Scientific American , June 21, 2021, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/maybe-the-aliens-really-are-here/. Does the Russian government seek to interfere with American elections, and if so, does its interference affect the outcome? The first part of the question is difficult (but not impossible) to answer because when a country interferes in another country’s domestic affairs it tries to do so in secret. It is difficult to uncover secrets. US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence , “Senate Intel Releases New Report on Intel Community Assessment of Russian Interference,” press release, April 21, 2020, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-new-report-intel-community-assessment-russian-interference. But the second part of the question, does the interference affect the outcome, is almost impossible to answer. Because so many factors influence election outcomes, it is extremely challenging to determine which individual factors made any consequential difference. Nate Silver, “How Much Did Russian Interference Affect the 2016 Election?” FiveThirtyEight , February 16, 2018, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-did-russian-interference-affect-the-2016-election/. There are thus empirical debates in which people of good faith disagree about what the facts are. In many cases, however, people do not want to acknowledge what the evidence shows, and because they do not want to believe what the facts demonstrate, they insist the evidence cannot be true. Humans often use motivated reasoning , first deciding what is true—for example, “Gun control makes us safer” or “Gun control makes us less safe”—and then finding evidence that supports this belief while rejecting data that contradicts it. Joseph M. Pierre, “The Psychology of Guns: Risk, Fear, and Motivated Reasoning,” Palgrave Communications 5, no. 1 (December 2019): 1–7. doi:10.1057/s41599-019-0373-z. Motivated Reasoning in Politics: Are Your Political Opinions as Rational as You Think? Social psychologist Peter Ditto contrasts motivated reasoning with science, where scientists build conclusions based on evidence, and those employing motivated reasoning seek evidence that will support their pre-determined conclusions. In other cases, individuals and interests may actually know what the facts are, but they are motivated by reasons of self-interest to deny them. The evidence is clear, for example, that nicotine is addictive and harmful to human health. The evidence is also clear that Big Tobacco, the largest cigarette companies, denied these facts for years because to admit them would have put their profits at risk. Stanton A. Glantz, The Cigarette Papers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996). Former President Donald Trump , along with many of his supporters, claims that he won the 2020 presidential election and that President Joe Biden was declared the victor only because of massive voter fraud. All attempts to prove that fraud led to Biden’s victory have failed: no evidence has been found to support Trump’s claims. “Voting Rights Litigation Tracker 2020,” Brennan Center for Justice, updated July 8, 2021, https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/court-cases/voting-rights-litigation-tracker-2020. That these claims continue can be attributed to the fact that some individuals are simply unwilling to accept the evidence, while others benefit from denying the validity of it. Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Anu Narayanswamy, “Trump Raises $495 Million since Mid-October, Including a Massive Haul Fueled by Misleading Appeals about Election Fraud,” Washington Post, December 4, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-fundraising/2020/12/03/3aa1091a-35b6-11eb-8d38-6aea1adb3839_story.html. Empirical political science might find—based on the available evidence—that individuals with more education or more income are more likely to vote. Empirical political science would not consider whether this is good or bad; that would be a normative judgement. Empirical political scientists might explain the link between education, income, and voting by positing that better educated, more prosperous individuals are more likely to believe that their views matter and that because of that belief they are more likely to express those views at the ballot box. These political scientists might also use their findings to make a prediction: an individual with more education or higher income is more likely to vote than an individual with less education or lower income. For one interesting article on this topic, see Melissa R. Michelson, “Political Efficacy and Electoral Participation of Chicago Latinos,” Social Science Quarterly 81, no. 1 (2000): 136–150. https://www.jstor.org/stable/42864372. Based on this finding, empirical political scientists make no claims as to who should participate in politics. Questions about “should” are the domain of normative political science . Moral judgments cannot be made strictly on the basis of empirical statements. That members of one group vote at higher rates than another group, for example, tells us nothing about whether they deserve to vote at higher rates or whether government policies should be based more on their views as compared to those who vote at lower rates. From this finding, however, empirical political scientists may infer a generalization. Generalizations are based on typical cases, average results, and general findings. Younger adults, for instance, typically vote less often than older adults. This does not mean that any specific young adult does not vote or that any specific older adult does, but that these statements are generally true. Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, “Why Younger Americans Don’t Vote More Often (*No, It’s Not Apathy),” FiveThirtyEight , October 30, 2020, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-younger-americans-dont-vote-more-often-no-its-not-apathy/. Empirical political scientists may study the impact of age, sex, ethnicity, education, and other factors on the likelihood that citizens will vote. (credit: “Super Duper Tuesday” by Josh Thompson/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) Generalizations can be helpful in describing, explaining, or predicting, but there is a downside to generalizations: stereotyping . If the evidence shows that political conservatives in the United States are opposed to higher levels of immigration, this means neither that every conservative holds this belief nor that one must hold this belief to be conservative. If data suggests supporters of abortion rights tend to be women, it is not possible to infer from the evidence that all women seek more permissive abortion laws or that no men do. In using generalizations, it is important to remember that they are descriptive of groups, not individuals. These are empirical statements, not normative ones: they cannot by themselves be used to assign blame or credit. Empirical political science can be used to make predictions, but predictions are prone to error. Can political science knowledge be useful for predicting the outcome of elections, for example? Yes. Given a set of rules about who is eligible to vote, how votes can be cast, and what different categories of voters believe about the candidates or policy options on the ballot, political science knowledge can be useful in predicting the outcome of the election. Our predictions might be wrong. Maybe people did not tell the truth about who they were planning to vote for. Maybe the people who said they were going to vote did not. In 2016, most political polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would be elected president of the United States. Nate Silver, “Election Update: Clinton Gains, and the Polls Magically Converge,” FiveThirtyEight , November 7, 2016, https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-clinton-gains-and-the-polls-magically-converge/. Clinton did indeed win the popular vote, as the pollsters anticipated, but Donald Trump won the electoral vote, against the pollsters’ expectations. Political science is imperfect, but it seeks to learn from and correct its mistakes. You will learn more about public opinion polling in Chapter 5: Political Participation and Public Opinion . Many of the terms in this book, like incumbent , are relevant mainly for the study of politics. Other terms, like ceteris paribus , are useful across a broad range of studies that use the scientific method. Ceteris paribus can be translated as “all other things being equal.” If the ethnicity of a political candidate does not influence their probability of getting elected to office, ceteris paribus , if there are only two candidates and if they are alike in every relevant aspect (e.g., age, experience, ability to raise campaign funding) except their ethnicity, then the candidate’s ethnicity by itself does not affect the outcome of the election. In real life, however, “all other things” are almost never equal. To the extent that our societies have inequalities of wealth, health, education, and other resources, the inequalities tend to be correlated—that is, mutually related—to each other. For example, wealth and health are correlated with each other in that wealthier people tend to have better health and poorer individuals tend to have poorer health. In the United States, Whites tend on average to have more wealth, health, education, and other social resources than do persons of color. Neil Bhutta, Andrew C. Chang, Lisa J. Dettling, and Joanne W. Hsu, “Disparities in Wealth by Race and Ethnicity in the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances,” Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, September 28, 2020, https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/disparities-in-wealth-by-race-and-ethnicity-in-the-2019-survey-of-consumer-finances-20200928.htm. This does not mean that every White person is wealthier and healthier, but that on average, in general, they tend to be. Empirical political science and political philosophy (or normative political science ) are distinct modes of inquiry. But this is not to say that they are conflicting, that one is better than the other, or that political scientists do not use both in their research. If empirical research discovers that certain groups are systematically disadvantaged in the political process, the researchers may also argue that these disadvantages are harmful or wrong and make a moral argument that the disadvantages should be reduced or eliminated. Empirical research is often inspired by normative concerns. Those who believe that human rights should be better protected may undertake research to understand the political factors that limit the protection of rights. A Slim Majority The 2020 election in the United States resulted in a 50-50 split in the US Senate. To be precise, 50 Republicans were elected to the Senate along with 48 Democrats and two Independents, but both Independents ally themselves with the Democrats. Until the election, the Republicans, whose 53 seats gave them a 6-seat advantage over the Democrats, were able to call the shots. With the Senate split 50-50, the US Constitution gives the vice president the power to break tie votes. Vice President Kamala Harris is a Democrat, so the Senate makeup became effectively 51-50. That one vote enormously increased the powers of the Senate Democrats. When you are in the minority, it can be difficult to move the political system in the direction you want. Once you gain the majority, getting what you want tends to be easier, at least in a democracy. US Vice President Kamala Harris is the first woman and the first person of color to hold this office. (credit: “59th Presidential Inauguration [Image 17 of 20]” by DoD/US Air Force Senior Airman Kevin Tanenbaum/Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, Public Domain) The 2020 election not only changed the balance of power in the US Senate, but it did so in an unprecedented way. The tie-breaking vote was held, for the first time in US history, by a woman and a person of color. Harris’s mother immigrated to the United States from India, and her father from Jamaica. Political power is not a constant; the political landscape is constantly changing. Empirical political science, in contrast to political philosophy, attempts to answer questions (or test hypotheses) on the basis of evidence. Unlike political philosophers, empirical political scientists are curious to learn about how the political world actually works rather than how it should work and about how politicians actually behave rather than how they should behave. Empirical political science is based on facts—that which can be counted or measured and verified to be true. It is not always easy to determine what the facts are, in part because political action can be so complex and difficult to observe. A key outcome of empirical research is generalizations—that is, statements about political behavior that are typically true or are correct in general even if not for every individual or each event. Generalizations are probabilistic rather than deterministic. Generalizations are helpful because they allow us to describe, explain, and predict. empirical political science the systematic study of political behavior, generally based on developing hypotheses and testing whether these hypotheses are supported based on the evidence

Social Sciences


Individuals, Groups, Institutions, and International Relations Learning Outcomes By the end of this section, you will be able to: Explain why it makes sense to begin learning about political science with a study of individual behavior. Discuss what human motivations, political ideologies, and public opinion have in common. Distinguish between civil liberties and civil rights, and explain why the former are examined in the section on individuals and the latter in the section on groups. Identify the key types of groups and institutions involved in politics. Identify the central themes in international relations and globalization. To develop your understanding of the key concepts and content in politics and political science, this book begins with the micro, focusing on the smallest political unit, the individual, in Part II. Part III turns to individuals acting collectively through groups. When groups become formalized by establishing rules and developing common practices, they become institutions, the focus of Part IV. Finally, Part V examines how clusters of institutions, whether within the government of a single country or across countries through international organizations, comprise a macro-level view of politics. All politics is based on human behavior—on how individuals interact with each other—so that is where our political exploration begins. Chapter 2: Political Behavior Is Human Behavior considers questions in political philosophy, such as “What are human rights?” and “What is social justice ?” The chapter then examines empirically how individuals generally make decisions, whether in political action or in any other context. Two ideas stand out. First, humans act instrumentally, or strategically or “rationally,” as they pursue their goals. Second, much of human behavior serves expressive and emotional ends. Chapter 3 explores political ideology . Ideology is a set of beliefs—a systematic set of concepts—that helps individuals make sense of the world and their place in it. Ideologies help guide an individual’s decisions regarding what is right and wrong, good and bad, and appropriate and inappropriate. Your political ideology determines, in part, how you see the proper roles of citizens and their governments. Although ideology is individual—only you can determine your political ideology—it connects you to many others in the same way that those with similar religious beliefs gather together. Ideology is both an individual and a group phenomenon. The essential freedoms and rights to which all humans are entitled, human rights , can be divided into two categories. Chapter 4 examines the first category, civil liberties , which involve individual freedoms to think and act without government interference. Later, Chapter 7 considers the civil rights groups have to do certain things, like voting or gaining access to public buildings. Citizens around the world ask their governments to protect and defend their human rights, both as groups—their civil rights—and as individuals—their civil liberties. Yet the boundaries of these human rights are disputed, and they are frequently under attack. What Is a Human Right? This United Nations video introduces a basic definition of human rights and how governments and the UN work to promote and protect them. The last chapter in Part II explores political participation and public opinion . Political participation includes all the various ways you and others can engage in the political process. In democracies, voting may be the most important and most common form of political participation, but there are countless other ways to participate. Even watching or reading political information is a form of participation, although, as Tufts University professor Eitan Hersh warns, if people only consume political news rather than acting on it, they are hobbyists rather than engaged citizens. Eitan Hersh, Politics Is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change (New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 2020). Individuals also have their own political opinions (typically, a political poll will ask questions like “Do you believe . . .”), but these opinions are aggregated into group categories and reported as public opinion . Chapter 5 examines how polls are constructed and how they convert individual views into valid measures of public opinion. Political participation and public opinion bridge individual and group behavior. When individuals vote as Republicans or Democrats, contact public officials on behalf of the Sierra Club or the NRA , or march in support of Black Lives Matter or the Right to Life , they are also participating as members of a political party, interest group , or social movement . A political pollster asks questions of individuals, but their answers are reported by group affiliations like “A majority of Republicans believe . . .” or “Supporters of BLM generally favor. . . .” Political action invariably involves groups, and Part III examines different aspects of group behavior, rights, and forms of political action. Chapter 6: The Fundamentals of Group Political Activity , should remind you of Chapter 2: Political Behavior Is Human Behavior . Both chapters consider two aspects of human behavior— the “irrational,” expressive, and symbolic elements, as well as the rational, instrumental, and strategic components. The first part of the chapter examines political socialization and political culture . Political socialization is the gradual process by which individuals develop their political personality over time, and this personality is heavily influenced by others in their environment—their family and friends, people in their schools and places of worship, and more broadly, people in their social networks. Political culture is the common set of political attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors characterizing a group, whether the group is a country or a community of any sort. The second part of the chapter introduces the concept of collective dilemmas , the logic underlying our difficulty in overcoming them, and potential ways to resolve these dilemmas. Collective dilemmas occur whenever multiple individuals interact with one another to make a group decision. Problems arise when they disagree on what the solutions should be or even how to decide what to do. A special form of collective dilemmas— collective action problems —exists when individuals have incentives not to cooperate with others even though cooperation would benefit the group as a whole. Chapter 7 focuses on civil rights . Governments must take action for these rights to exist in practice, and governments typically extend these rights to certain groups. Consider the right to vote. For this right to be exercised, the government must provide places to vote, ballots, and ballot counters. When voting rights are extended—or withdrawn—they are extended to or withdrawn from specific groups. Voting rights were extended to African Americans in 1870 in the United States and to women in Switzerland in 1971; in Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and Scotland, 16-year-olds have the right to vote. Because governments must take action for civil rights to be realized, they are matters of intense political debate. Contests over civil rights—in fact, political battles over every issue—usually involve group conflict, competition, and cooperation. Chapter 8 focuses on interest groups , political parties , and elections. Interest groups are organizations of individuals united by common identities and goals who seek to obtain their objectives through political action. Political parties are organizations that try to gain political power, most often in democracies by running their candidates for office. The main goal of interest groups is to influence public policy, including by supporting political parties as they try to win elections. Political parties seek to win elections in order to set public policy as their candidates enter office. Interest groups, political parties, and elections are inextricably linked. Communication Skills and Political Science Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack (right) talks with the editor-in-chief of Native News Network.com Levi Rickert (left) at the National Congress of American Indians Tribal Nations Legislative Summit in 2012. (credit: “20120307-OSEC-LSC-0144” by US Department of Agriculture/Flickr, Public Domain) Political science is fundamentally about interactions between different actors. When we study political science, we learn how to explain and describe those interactions. We can also think about political science as the study of how various conflicts (both actual and metaphorical) are resolved. In both conceptualizations, effective communication plays a fundamental role. We cannot understand how relationships work if we cannot effectively describe those relationships, and we cannot truly understand the conflict process without being able to analyze the communication between adversaries. Communication skills, therefore, become an essential part of the political scientist’s toolbox. These communication skills are among the most widely desired by employers and utilized in the workforce, regardless of field. While you may learn how to write a detailed analysis of a particular policy or situation in a political science class, you may end up applying that skill as a city manager or journalist. In political science, you may also learn how to translate large, often complex, amounts of data into understandable conclusions or findings. This form of communication is applicable to multiple different professions outside of political science—you are learning to translate data into something meaningful for non-experts. Part III moves to yet a higher level of complexity: political institutions. An institution is an organization with a set of rules and practices that inform its members about their relationships with one another and how they should interact. Institutions may be formal, with written rules, or they may be informal. Your family is an institution, and if you belong to a religious faith, it is an institution too. Gangs are institutions, as are businesses. Our main interest in this book is institutions that are part of the political system either because they are part of the government or they seek to influence it. The first three chapters in Part IV introduce you to three types of institutions likely to exist within any government: a legislature, an executive branch, and a judiciary. As discussed in Chapter 9: Legislatures , a legislature is an institution composed of individuals who have the power to propose, deliberate on, adopt, and alter the laws of a state. Parliaments, congresses, and national assemblies are all examples of legislatures. In democracies, legislators are elected. In nondemocratic states, they may be appointed by a supreme authority. The United States, like about 40 percent of the world’s democracies, has a bicameral , or two-chamber, legislature; the other democracies have unicameral , or one-chamber, legislatures. Chapter 10 turns to executives and the executive branch, which includes cabinets and bureaucracies . The chief executive of a country goes by various titles, such as president, premier, or prime minister, and their responsibilities vary from country to country. This person may be the head of the government, with the powers of a chief executive officer; the head of state, with ceremonial powers; or both. A chief executive’s cabinet, composed of the leaders of the various governmental ministries (sometimes called departments) such as defense, treasury, or interior affairs, supports the chief executive. The bureaucracy executes most of the functions of a government, from defending the country to delivering its mail, serving under the direction of the chief executive and their cabinet. The courts are institutions established to interpret and apply a country’s laws regarding criminal, civil, and in some cases constitutional disputes. They can be either appointed or elected. The courts and the judges or justices are more powerful when they are politically independent. This means they can decide cases and issue rulings without facing retribution from the voters or the legislative and executive branches. In the United States, for example, the Supreme Court can void laws and policies of the legislative and executive branches that it deems unconstitutional. In other countries, the courts largely serve at the direction of other politicians. Chapter 11: Courts and Law describes what courts do, the different types of legal systems, and questions regarding their power and its limits. Chapter 12 introduces the news media and its role in politics. The news media —often called the fourth branch of government—is itself an institution. The news media, whether owned or controlled by a government or commercial businesses, is evolving rapidly. Thirty years ago, the news media could be defined as including television, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Today, with the rise of social media platforms that allow users to share and stream videos, images, and text, the news media is almost literally anyone with a smartphone and internet access. And although misinformation and disinformation have always been part of the political world, social media’s speed and scope for spreading “fake news” is unprecedented. Democracies require a free press—one that operates without government interference—but they also require a press that reports real, not fake, news. Legislatures, executives, and courts are the institutions that together compose the three formal branches of a country’s government, with the media as the fourth branch serving to keep the other three branches honest by reporting on their activities. Part V moves beyond individual institutions to explore the politics of countries and the relations between them. Chapter 13 looks within individual countries, or states, to describe the different types of governing regimes, or systems of government, that exist around the world. The chapter highlights two main regime characteristics: how concentrated or distributed governmental power is, and how the government is structured. The broader the distribution of government power, the more democratic the country. The more concentrated the distribution, the more authoritarian the regime. Structurally, governing regimes can be unitary, where all legal authority resides with the national government, or they can be federal, like the United States, where national and state governments each have their own legitimate sources of power. Big questions concerning the relations among countries are at the heart of Chapter 14: International Relations . The chapter begins by discussing the different ways political actors wield power in the international system. The structure of the system and the different actors within it are then examined. Political scientists have different perspectives on how to interpret the motivations and behavior of countries in their relationships with each other, and the most prominent of these perspectives, including realism, liberalism, and constructivism, as well as critical theories that challenge traditional viewpoints, are outlined. As the countries of the world have interacted with each other, they have developed institutions to help overcome their collective dilemmas. Chapter 15: International Law and International Organizations introduces the purposes and work of the most important international organizations , such as the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The chapter goes on to examine military alliances like NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ). These organizations all have countries as members, but the international political environment also contains important “non-state” actors, including legal ones, such as multinational corporations and financial institutions, and non-legal ones like drug cartels and terrorist groups. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the threats to the international order posed by terrorism and revolution. The final chapter focuses on the international political economy . International political economy concerns itself with the impact of political actions on domestic and international economies. If politics is about who gets what, when, where, how, and why, IPE tells us who the winners (who got) and losers (who didn't get) are, how they got that way, and analyzes the tactics they may employ to maintain or improve their position. Winners and losers may be governments, private interests, or social classes, among many others, and the chapter concludes with a discussion of current widespread crises confronting winners and losers with stark choices regarding poverty, inequality, and environmental degradation. Mark Carl Rom, Associate Professor of Government and Public Policy at the McCourt School of Public Policy and the Department of Government, Georgetown University Please explain what you do for your organization. I teach courses in US politics, public policy, data visualizations, and the role ethics and values play in politics. I have conducted research and published books and articles on many different topics: sex education, same-sex marriage, financial regulation, and welfare reform, among others. Some of my current research focuses on the college classroom as a political environment. What did you study in school? I majored in political science at the University of Arkansas. Before becoming a political scientist, I worked as a janitor, a field hand, a waiter, a ticket taker, a library clerk, a gas station attendant, an assembly-line laborer, and a backpacking guide, among other odd jobs. What did you learn as an undergraduate that helps you in this position? Classrooms raise questions regarding power, legitimacy, and consent. The allocation of grades depends on the classroom’s rules, its reality, and the choices that teachers and students make. How should grades be allocated, and how are they allocated? I want to find the answer to those questions. This text examines politics using a “micro (individuals) to macro (relations between countries)” framework. It begins by focusing on individuals, the building blocks of all political action: nothing happens in politics unless individuals are engaged in political activity. While all political behavior is ultimately individual behavior, in politics individuals typically band together with others to form political parties, interest groups, or even social movements. When groups are formalized—with set rules and practices, for example—they become institutions. The text examines the most important governmental institutions—legislatures, executives and executive agencies, courts, and bureaucracies. These are the institutions present in every government in the world. The news media is the most important nongovernmental institution. International relations involves the interactions among countries on matters of war and peace, as well the international political economy and globalization. Bagge, Peter. Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story . Montreal, Canada: Drawn and Quarterly, 2013. Coates, Ta-Nahesi. We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy . London: OneWorld Publications, 2018. Cohen, Cathy. Democracy Remixed: Black Youth and the Future of American Politics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Books, 2013. Hersh, Eitan. Politics Is for Power: How to Move Beyond Political Hobbyism, Take Action, and Make Real Change. New York: Scribner, 2020. Roy, Arundhati. My Seditious Heart: Collected Nonfiction. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019. Thomas, Gillian. Because of Sex: One Law, Ten Cases, and Fifty Years that Changed American Women’s Lives at Work. New York: Picador Paper, 2017. civil liberties human freedoms with which the government may not interfere civil rights opportunities to which all humans are entitled that governments must act to protect collective action problem a collective dilemma in which the group would benefit if its members cooperated, but they have incentives not to do so, and these incentives ultimately harm not only the group but the individuals themselves collective dilemmas problems that arise when multiple individuals interact with one another to make a group decision courts an institution for resolving disputes executives the persons responsible for leading an institution human rights liberties and opportunities that humans have by virtue of their humanity legislature an institution composed of individuals who have the power to propose, deliberate, adopt, and alter the laws of a state political ideology a set of beliefs (or a systematic set of concepts) that helps individuals determine how they see the proper roles of citizens and their governments public opinion in empirical political science, the sum of individual opinions on the question being asked

Social Sciences


Introduction What do people seek, and how do they behave? (credit: “Woman Exploring” by Matt Bango/stocksnap, CC0 1.0) Tensions are growing in the South China Sea. China, seeking to expand its sphere of influence, is building up its military capacity and presence. Taiwan considers itself an independent country; China considers Taiwan a breakaway Chinese province. The United States watches warily: it has been the dominant military and economic power in the region since World War II, it is a major trade partner with China, and it has a special relationship with Taiwan. “China, Mongolia, and Taiwan,” Office of the United States Trade Representative, https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/china-mongolia-taiwan. Will conflict lead to war, or can peaceful relations prevail? Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks. (credit: “14/11/2019 Sessão Plenária da XI Cúpula de Líderes do BRICS” by Palácio do Planalto/Flickr, CC BY 2.0) The grandest conflicts in international relations are ultimately based on the behavior of individual humans: political leaders, the citizens who support (or oppose) them, the decisions they make, and the actions they take. To understand politics—to understand who is doing what, when, and how—it is necessary to understand humans. Harold Lasswell famously defined politics as “who gets what, when, how.” Harold D. Laswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, vol. 30 (New York: Whittlesey House, 1936). Our task in this section is somewhat different, as we are asking who does what. Understanding humans requires more than simply observing how they behave, however; it is also useful to attempt to discern their moral aspirations—to learn what they believe to be their higher goals. In this view, however China, Taiwan, and the United States choose to act, their actions will be about more than merely defending their material interests. These countries’ leaders are also pursuing their ideas of how the world should be structured, of what principles they espouse, and of what they believe political rules and goals ideally should be. This chapter will consider matters both normative and empirical , both philosophical and practical. Politics involves both lofty dreams and down-and-dirty actions. First the chapter considers aspirations, and then it turns to behavior.

Social Sciences