POL 1000 – Lecture 2: Contending Approaches

1. POL 1000 – Lecture 2: Contending Approaches Sean Clark Lecturer, Memorial University Doctoral Fellow, CFPS Winter Session, 2011

2. Lecture Arc • 1. Formal/legal-Institutionalism. • 2. Systems Analysis. • 3. Structural-Functionalism. • 4. Political Culture. • 5. Rational Choice. • 6. Neo-Institutionalism. • 7. Critical Scholarship.

3. The Battle of Approaches • Poli scis rarely start from the same point. • Begin w different assumptions, questions, concepts, & methods. • Lesson? There are different ways to conceptualize political life. • Classical concern was w formal institutional arrangements (legal structure of power). • Who has what power, & thru what legal channels is it exercised (i.e. Bagehot in 1867, 1872)? • How does the system work? What do the blueprints of power look like? • 1950s: we need to make poli sci a real ‘science.’ • Classicals care about description, not why things happen. • Is atheoretical (focus on specific cases, not general theory). • Focus on instxns = miss other political actors. • What about historical practice (i.e. PM started as unwritten)? • Instxns don’t always work as written or designed. • ‘Tell me the 14 powers of the queen.’ • Too parochial (concerned only w W). • Thus, Behaviouralism arrives by 1960s. • Is acceleration of sci ambition (use scientific method to search for causal relations) of post-Adam Smith era. • Aims to develop general theories thru systematic, often large-scale, comparisons & the use of quantitative methods. • Take large amounts of data, then tease out general laws. • Focus on behaviour, as action seen to reveal preferences (better than words or blueprints).

4. Systems Analysis • Easton’s ‘systems theory’ was 1st behavioural effort. Unique bc: • Focused on political actors. • Offered general (applicable everywhere) & simplified (boiled to basic parts) theory of politics. • Saw politics as mechanisms regulating a series of demands & resources (‘inputs’) into ‘outputs’. • Politics can change from exogenous shocks or endogenous ‘feedback.’ • Inputs & outputs balance until reach equilibrium. • (essentially saw polities as work of machines). • Problems: • Mechanisms largely seen as impenetrable ‘black boxes,’ so how advance our understanding of decisions? • Actors appear equal in power, but surely this cannot be. • Is biased towards equilib. Govts can, after all, fall apart. • Why do mechanisms emerge in the first place?

5. Structural-Functionalism • Almond incorporates Parsons, Merton, & Durkheim’s thoughts on social functions. • Argmt: structures of politics (i.e. instxns, rules) exist bc they are necessary. • Polities evolve like biological creatures. Each organ is vital to survival. • Every political system has 7 core functions: • political socialization, interest articulation, interest aggregation, political communication, rule making, rule application, & rule adjudication. • Virtue: same function can be seen in different cultural contexts. • Problem: is circular argmt (fxn drives instxn). • Instead, some fxns arrive simply by historical accident (i.e. countries created on basis of map lines). • Plus, not all societies have the same functions. • I.e. Japan & US stress election campaigns. Singapore & China do not.

6. Political Culture • Almond & Verba: political systems can be explained by culture. • Values & beliefs towards politics (themselves the consequence of historical events) will shape how that polity operates. • US: founded by immigrants distrustful of govt = legacy today. • Pre-1960 French Canada: endurance of conservative values as settled-then-separated before liberal ideas swept Europe post Napoleon. • Question inspired by potential for democratization during post-decolonization. • What regions are prepped for democ? Which not? • Problems: • How operationalize culture? How place it on a graph? • They try, i.e. Putnam, but is very difficult & uncertain task. • How avoid relativity (preference of one cult over another)? • How does cultural change occur? • How important is culture, since different cults can end up with same political stability (i.e. US, Japan, Botswana).

7. Rational Choice • Develop theories from economics-like deductive laws. • 1. Assume actors maximize their interests. • Are ‘rational’ egoists. • Behave strategically (weigh costs & benefits). • 2. Deduce consequential behaviour. • Society is aggregation of individual choices. • Groups thus reflect sum of strategic calculations. • Concerned with incentives & corresponding behaviour. • 3. Compare against empirical record. • I.e. Downs’ (‘57) theory of democracy, Riker’s (‘62) theory of coalitions. • Made simple logic model, compared it to evidence, & found it demonstrated profound congruence. • Virtues: uncovers underlying motivations, & is widely generalizable (acultural). • Vices: • Overplay ‘strategic’ decisions given info is so limited. • Assumes preferences are given. Why can’t they change? • Are humans really ‘rational’? Can they calculate w/o bias?

8. Neo-Institutionalism • Must not privilege individual actors over instxns (have their own causal weight). • Different instxns = different outcomes. • Navigate politics differently in US (presidential system) than in Canada (parliamentary system)—i.e., President is much weaker than PM. • I.e. Skocpol (‘79): need to bring ‘state back in.’ • Instxns provide incentives, thus condition behaviour. • Focus not on legal framework, but how instxn actually operates (i.e. diff from classicals). • Recognize influence of structural conditions, but also allows for agency and change. • Problem: again, what about change? • Someone creates them, runs them. So what about these actors, these individuals? • JS Mill (of constxns): “men did not wake up on a summer morning and find them all sprung up.” • Plus, concern w focus on historical context, rather than generalizable findings. • How learn if only concerned with one point in time & space?

9. Critical Scholarship • ‘Critical’ bc unhappy w mainstream theory. • Argue it is not neutral & value free, as mainstream claims. • This is not actually a ‘scientific’ enterprise. • Cox: ‘all theory is for someone.’ • I.e. realist power theories are merely to privilege the powerful. • Feminism: gender analysis missing in traditional literature. • Must understand women do not start in same place as men (patriarchy). • Often suffer differently (i.e. rape in war, wage gap, etc). • Suffrage has not ended male occupation of most high offices. • Contention: how different are women from men (a spirited debate even w/in feminism itself). • Postmodernism: pretensions of ‘science’ is a sham. • Humans are too complicated to be studied like atoms. • Foucault: is no political ‘reality. Instead, just discourse (language & exchange of ideas). • Need to unlock origins of these ideas (‘deconstruction’; who are they benefiting?), & trace their impact—is only way to achieve social equality. • Of course, if can’t accumulate knowledge (is no reality), what is point of research?