Introduction to Political Science. Exam 2 Study guide

For Exam two you are responsible for Chapters 3 & 4 in The Challenge of Politics text and Chapter 2 & 3 of Kelleher and Klein Global Perspectives and class notes.

Dr. Wright notes:

Power:

Model: a simplified picture of reality

Political System: Entails the entire state including an awareness of influences upon the system. Power is an important aspect. Power relates to the shaping and carrying out of authoritative decisions in society.

Political Systems model: politics of a given country can be viewed as a biological system.

Inputs: Demands and Supports are the ways average citizens and groups they form affect political life.
Demands: become issues
Supports: actions prompting and resisting a political system.

Decision Making process: Government
Outputs: decisions or policy

Policy: consists of actions discharged by governmental representatives, directed toward objectives, conditions and actors

Feedback: Communication feed back into the environment by satisfying the demands of some members of the system. There may also be negative consequences

Political Culture: attitudes and values held by individuals and groups about the political system.

Importance of “units of analysis.” Units of analysis provide frameworks for empirical investigation (observation). Units of analysis provide frameworks for empirical investigation. The unit of analysis is the major entity that is being analyzed or examined. It is the 'what' or 'whom' that is being studied. In political science research, the most typical units of analysis are either different countries, individual people, groups or social organizations.

Chapter 3 Political Science: Components, Tasks, and Controversies

(pp. 61-62) What are the four traditional subfields of political science?

(p. 63) Political Science is a field of study characterized by a search for critical understanding of:

(p. 63) Political Science is thus concerned with the search for meaningful knowledge of the interrelated __________, _____________, and _____________ components of that community concerned with public life.

(p. 63 & 507) According to the text, how is politics defined?

(pp. 63-66) List and describe the three major components of Political Science.

(p. 64 & 502) What are ethics?

(p. 65 & 502) What is empiricism?

(p. 65) What is political prudence?

(p. 66) List and describe the four major tasks of Political Science.

(pp. 72 & 506) Define the concept of political health

(p. 77 & 500) What is behaviorialism?

(p. 77- 78) Easton’s 8 intellectual foundation stones of behavioralism.
(a. regularities
(b. commitment to verification
(c. techniques
(d. quantification
(e. values
(f. systemization
(g. pure science
(h. integration.

(p.78 & 501) What is causality?

(pp. 83) The 7 phases of the decision making process as seen by Harold Lasswell.

Chapter 4 The Physical, Social, and Cultural Environment of Politics

(p. 87) Politics does not occur in a vacuum. Although political actors are free to make choices to fulfill their values, they must make these choices in an environment not entirely of their own choosing. Politics, and political decisions, can be understood only in terms of the __________, ____________, and ______________, environment in which a community is embedded.

(pp. 87-88) List the 9 important propositions that the chapter offers for understanding the impact of the physical, social, and cultural environment on politics.

(p. 90) Define the concept of carrying capacity?

(p. 90) Currently, our planet supports approximately _____ billion people, and estimates of future population levels run as high as _____ billion people by the year 2025. This population tidal wave will likely put enormous strains on political systems in the future as government seeks to assist in the fulfillment of human needs.

(pp. 92-94) What are the political problems that can arise do to limited or finite resources?

(p. 95) The biological, physiological, psychological and social elements of humans influence political values, behavior, and judgments. (What are the key questions)

(p. 95) Humans have unique characteristics that distinguish them from other living creatures. What are the four unique characteristics:

(p. 95) Human needs significantly influence economic and social life and thus politics. (See also Kelleher and Klein Global Perspectives Ch. 4 Kelleher and Klein refer to human needs as basic needs)

(p. 95) People need to ________, _____, and develop ___________ and __________.

(p. 96) Human beings also have certain social needs as:

(p. 96) Cooperation vs. conflict: We do not have to believe that biology is destiny to recognize that cooperation and conflict may have some relation to our human endowment.
Most biologists, anthropologists, and social psychologists contend that human aggression is ___________ behavior.

(p. 96) Self-awareness of ourselves as human beings is critical to understanding our propensity to adopt or resist certain forms of behavior, such as racism and sexism--behaviors that pose enormous challenges to our political systems.

(p. 96) Define the concepts of racism and sexism.

(p. 98) Social Communities
In addition to the behavior of human beings as individuals, how we form and behave in social communities is important to understanding political behavior. Our cultural history, our economic and religious philosophy and institutions, our racial and ethnic origins, and our class structures all provide context for our political behavior.

(p. 99) People’s methods of earning a living have always crucially influenced political life. The larger economic relationships of society have enormous impact on politics and public policy. We seek to protect our _________ _________, and this leads most inevitably to politics.

(pp. 99-100) Karl Marx held that a society’s economic structure, especially its system of economic production, was the real foundation upon which the political superstructure and other aspects of the superstructure – such as religion, art, and ethics – rested. For Marx, the power of the ruling class came from its control of _________ _______.

(p. 100) Economics throws light on __________ and __________, values always at the heart of the struggle for power that is politics.

(p. 101) Economic interests are not the only powerful influences in society and therefore politics. Other groups - __________, ____________, ___________, ___________, - are also at work, and their efforts to protect their vital interests also impinge on politics.

(p. 102) ______________ is an enduring source of conflict the world over. Western civilization has been shaped no less by religious conflict than by religious adherence.

(p. 102 & 507) What is religious fundamentalism?

(p. 106 & 501) Define class?

(pp. 110-111) Scientific and Technological Environment of Politics
Modern science and technology have significantly affected the world in which we live. They have facilitated industrialization and urbanization. They have brought people and goods closer together through rapid transportation and communication. And they most certainly have increased our economic independence. Modern medicine, science, and technology have assured population growth. Most dramatically, science and technology have intensified war’s destructive powers. Ensuring that science and technology be harnessed for beneficial ends has been and will continue to be an enormous challenge for political leaders.

(p. 108) What is a nation’s prescriptive constitution?

(p. 108) Alexis de Tocqueville in his work “Democracy in America” sought to explain American society and politics by calling attention to several important factors. What are these factors?

(p. 108) Historian Crane Brinton’s Anatomy of Revolution points toward certain stages that apply to successful democratic revolutions other than the four he studied (the English Civil War, the American and French Revolutions and the Russian Revolution). What are the stages that all successful revolutions must pass through?

(p. 108) Define civic culture.

(p. 110) What is the enlightenment?

(p. 113) Politics and political science cannot be understood in a ___________. the activity that is politics and the discipline that is political science exists in a larger world and are affect by a larger environment.

(p. 113) In important ways, that larger environment - ______________, ________________, __________________ - influences political values, behavior, and judgment and sets the stage on which political play proceeds.

Global Perspectives; Chapter 2: Ethnicity and Global Diversity

(p.26) What is necessary to understanding global issues?

(p.26) Define cultural identity: perceived differences between people.

(p.26) People are informed not only by their state imperative but also?

(p.26) In order to create a peaceful and cooperative world, people must?

(p.26) Chapter 2 introduces significant cultural distinctions in the contemporary world in order to begin to explain why people will . . . . ?

(p. 27) What is culture?

(pp. 28-29) What are the two categories of cultural change and how do they differ?

(p. 32) Define immigration?
(p.33) Define transnational immigrant

(p. 35) What is gender?

(p. 37) A final global category, one that has no biological base but great human consequence, is__________________________.

(p. 38) What is ethnocentrism and why is it so difficult to combat? Ethnocentrism: involves judging the customs of another culture to one’s own standards. Difficult to combat because there is a positive reality that helps cause the negative outcome. Children are enculturated so that they can function in their own society. Cultural relativity is the term used to describe a form of solution to this problem. Cultural relativity suggests that the actions of people within each culture should be evaluated according to the rules of that culture.

(p. 38) What is cultural relativity?

(p. 49) What is Global Primacy? What are the basic elements

(p. 50 ) What is assimilation?

(p. 50) What is Ethnocide and Acculturation?

(p. ) What are the important points of state primacy? (p. 51) What is patriotism? (p. 52) What is paternalism?

(p. 53) What is cultural primacy?
(p. 54) Cultural Pluralism mandates __________________ of cultural differences without ethnocentric judgment.

(pp. 57-63.) Case study the Nunavut. (See essay Question below)

Short Answer Questions:

(pp. 61-62) List and describe the basic structure of political science.

(pp. 63-66) List and describe the three major components of Political Science.

(P. 108) Alexis de Tocqueville in his work “Democracy in America” sought to explain American society and politics by calling attention to several important factors. List and describe these factors? (hint there are 10)

(pp. 110-113) Describe the enlightenment and why it is important to politics today.

(pp. 49-50) Ch. 3 Global Perspectives text: Describe the major elements of global primacy.

(pp. 53-56) Ch. 3 Global Perspectives text: Describe the major elements of cultural primacy.

(pp. 57-63) Ch. 3 Global Perspectives text: What is the contemporary situation for the Inuit in Nunavut? What lessons and understandings can we gain for the case analysis?