Comparative politics focuses on politics within nations International relations focuses on politics between nations Political science Comparative politics and international relations are not mutually exclusive Ch 1 because of the few examples given in the graph in the book revolution political economy and environmental politics public policy CP and IR are also not collectively exhaustive because of American politics and Ch 2 three different type of questions we ask in political science 1 evaluative question how should the world look ex Should the US go to war with Iran Should the president have the power to declare war Should the rich be taxed a a higher rate than the poor also normative questions 2 descriptive questions how does the world look Ex How many chambers does the Swedish legislature have How powerful is the president of France How many parties are in the UK 3 Explanatory questions why does the world look this way Ex Why does an event occur What causes some event Why are some sates democratic but other authoritarian Why do dictatorships become democracies Which of these questions is the best prepared to answer Steps in the scientific process 1 Systematic observation questions 2 Experiment Game theory model regression analysis 3 Formulate hypothesis implications 4 Measurement 5 Observe test evaluate Confirm reformulate What must be true for political science to be a science 1 It must accumulate knowledge over time 2 Science helps answer explanatory questions which can motivate evaluative questions or inform answers to evaluative questions 3 Scientific process Ch 3 Politics Political science Exit you accept a negative change in your environment and you alter your behavior Voice to try to change the environment back to its original condition Loyalty you accept the fact that your environment has changed and you make no change to your behavior Backward induction is used to solve extensive form game It is the process of reasoning backward from the end of the game or situation to the beginning in order to determine an optimal course of action Finds subgame perfect equilibrium SPE Strategic situation in this the choices of one actor depend on the choices made by other actors Social contract the aforementioned agreement between the state and its citizens It outlines the responsibilities for each entity The agreement is implicit Nash Equilibrium is a set of strategies in a game one for each player such that no player has an incentive to unilaterally change his mind given what the other players are doing nash equibrium you don t leave a branch of subgame equilibrium to a payoff Different from subgame perfect equilibrium there can be multiples Every branch is labeled as a subgame equibrium What is the difference between an optimal and suboptimal equilibrium If you have two Nash equilibriums for example 2 2 and 1 1 the one that gives the highest benefit is the optimal and the less benefit is the suboptimal They have to be Nash Equilbrium for optimal and sub there can be multiple suboptimals and equivalent optimals Two implications for voice to work 1 The citizen must have a credible exit threat E 0 2 The state must be dependent on the citizen L 1 Ch 4 Nation a group of people who share some sort of identity such as a language religion history or ethnicity Nation State As state where a single nation predominated and the legal social demographic and geographic boundaries of the state are connected in important ways to the state commonalities existed before the state was formed Ex Israel formed around the jewish state and religion Failed state a state like entity that cannot coerce and is unable to successfully control the inhabitants of a given territory Ex Somalia Ch 5 Reliability refers to the extent to which the measurement process repeatedly and consistently produces the same score for a given case Validity refers to the extent to which our measure correspond to the concepts that they are intended to reflect State an entity that uses coercion and the great threat of force to rule in a given territory Government the set of people who run the state or have the authority to act on behalf of the state at a particular point in time In the US the government changes every 4 years Regime the set of rules norms or institutions that determine how the government is constituted how it is organized and how major decisions are made last regime change in the US was in 1789 In Egypt both regime and government was changed Two dimensions of democracy according to Dahl Contestation captures the extent to which citizens are free to organize themselves into competing blocs in order to press for the policies and outcomes they desire It is easier to get on the ballot Inclusion has to do with who gets to participate in the democratic process When everyone can vote there is a lot of inclusion Polyarchy a political regime with high levels of both contestation and inclusion What is the difference between the substantive view of democracy and the minimalist view of democracy classifies political regimes in Substantive view of democracy regard to the outcome they produce Minimalist view of democracy regard to the institutions If you have a leader that s not was not elected democratically but turns into e democracy EGYPT he referenced in class then it is allows classifies political regimes in Minimalist democratic institution democracy Does not say anything about non democratic institutions producing a democracy Different levels of measurement Nominal measurement classifies cases into categories that have no natural ordering Ex labeling a state Islamic Jewish Christian or secular Gender in Saudia Arabia it is an ordinal measure Sexual preference Race ethnicity Type of electoral rules SMDP alternative vote two round Ordinal measure classifies cases into categories that have a natural ordering Ex college football rankings Just number orderings The 5th team is not 5x worse the first Social class upper middle class elite GPA Ideology strong liberal liberal moderate conservative strong conservative Freedom house scores not free partly free free Interval cardinal measure assigns a number to cases such that the distance between the units are equal Ex dollar One dollar is two dollars Age GDP Ch 6 Gross Domestic Product GDP A measurement of all the goods and services produced in a single country over a specified unit of time typically a year We can think of this measure as the country s wealth Gross Domestic Product
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