EMPIRICAL THEORIES OF POLITICS
Professor Lawrence C. Dodd
University of Florida
Spring, 2007

Part One: Introduction

Week One: Class Organization: August 28th

Week Two:  Science, Theory and Empirical Inquiry:  September 4th

Week Three: Multiple Perspectives on the World: September 11th

Part Two: Foundations of Empirical Theory

Week Four: Social Choice I: September 18th

Week Five: Social Choice II: September 25th

Week Six: Social Structure I: October 2nd

Week Seven: Social Learning I: October 9th

Week Eight: Sociocultural Evolution I: October 16th

BREAK (No Class-October 23^rd): Prepare Theory Paper I

Part Three: Advanced Topics in Empirical Theory

Week Eleven: Social Structure II: November 13^th

Week Twelve: Social Learning II: November 20^nd

Week Thirteen: Sociocultural Evolution II: November 27^th

Seminar Objectives

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the relevance and role of empirical theory in political analysis. It seeks to do so in four ways. First, it provides an overview of  some basic attributes that characterize ‘good empirical theory’ and presents several contrasting theoretical traditions in political analysis. Second, it engages students in learning to think and argue in a manner that is both theoretical  -- that is, abstract, systematic and reasoned in nature – and empirical – that is, subject to probing, investigation and testing by empirical observation. Third, it guides students towards the construction of an empirical theory that will be useful in addressing a puzzle of immediate interest to them; in particular, it seeks to help students develop theoretical ideas and arguments relevant to their doctoral dissertations. Fourth, it seeks to alert students to the problems and pitfalls of various forms of theoretical thinking and to encourage them to think about the broader paradigmatic and philosophical implications of empirical theories.

The basic assumption of the course is that as we employ empirical theory in political inquiry, we increase our capacity to clarify, understand, explain, discuss intelligently and perhaps foresee the nature of political reality. Empirical theory is, then, first and foremost a way of thinking about the world that allows us to comprehend the world more fully and foresightfully than we would otherwise. Along the way, empirical theory provides, secondarily, a variety of perspectives, hypotheses and possibilities that we can test both through empirical research and through observation of predicted outcomes in the real world.. The purpose of empirical theory, however, is not to provide fodder for our razzle-dazzle statistical techniques, justifications for exotic field trips or rationales for required research projects,  but to provide ways of thinking about the world that allow us to see it and reason about it more self-consciously, completely, foresightfully and deeply than we would otherwise.

Much of the ‘test’ of empirical theory, thus, comes not in its utility in ‘research’ but in its sustained relevance to the real world as evidenced in a theory’s long term capacity to help society at-large discuss, make sense out of, address and foresee political phenomena. As scholars we seek to contribute plausible empirical theories to societal dialogue while probing and testing elements of our theories that are potentially susceptible to immediate disconfirmation; along the way, however, we realize that the most inventive and far-reaching theories (as with Darwin’s theory of evolution in biology) may involve some major empirical arguments and assumptions not susceptible to test through currently available data and methods. Our obligation, as empirical theorists, is thus three-fold: (1) to state our theories in ways that are subject, in principle, to eventual testing and disconfirmation through potential empirical observation (2) to pursue immediate test of those elements of our theories that are currently amenable to empirical observations, being as rigorous, resourceful and disciplined as we can be in this endeavor; and (3) also to engage in the broader theoretical dialogues of our discipline and society in a conscientious and constructive manner that seeks to clarify the applicability of our theories to broad puzzles while also evidencing a significant element of humility that reflects the limits of our capacity to ‘prove’ our theories.

Given this general understanding of the nature and role of empirical theory, in this course we attempt to understand how scholars generate empirical theories that address intriguing political puzzles, how they test and apply elements of their theories through empirical observation, and how they can best utilize empirical theories in broad conversations about politics. We will do so by examining four theoretical traditions:

(1)     social choice theories: arguments that emphasize the rational goal-oriented calculus of individuals in politics, as qualified and informed by genetic and neuro-biological studies;

(2)     social structure theories: arguments that emphasize the role of social, institutional and economic conditions and processes in shaping the context and outcome of political action;

(3)     social learning and political psychological theories: arguments that center on the role that perceptions, attitudes, beliefs and ideas play in shaping individual and group capacities to make choices in specific contexts; and

(4)     socio-cultural evolution theories: arguments that highlight the collective processes by which goals, structures and beliefs are reshaped and transformed into new patterns across time.

Each of these four theoretical traditions covers an immense literature that scholars could spend a lifetime studying. The intent in examining these four traditions is not to engage students in a comprehensive effort to master each literature, but (1) to introduce them to some foundation concepts and arguments that illustrate the four distinct ways of theorizing about empirical political reality, and to consider how social scientists have built on such concepts and arguments in their research and theorizing; (2) to provide some overview bibliography and discussions that will help students critically assess each theoretical tradition and engage in the study of the individual theoretical traditions on their own; (3) to help students grasp the ‘logic’ of theorizing in the four different ways, so that students can engage in some initial efforts at theory-building and empirical research from each perspective; and (4) to help students combine the different forms of theorizing into broader empirical interpretations and  learn from the interplay of the different traditions.

The overarching logic of the course, in other words, is to engage the student in ‘doing empirical theory’ through the use and combination of four different ways of conceptualizing and analyzing political reality. Two explicit assumptions throughout the course are that one can learn to ‘do empirical theory’ by studying and critiquing foundations works and exemplars in the major traditions of empirical theory and that one can learn to appreciate and critically assess different theoretical traditions by explicitly comparing them to one another. ‘Doing theory’ involves seeking to make one’s assumptions about the world (or analytic vision) explicit, to clearly identify key causal principles that operate in one’s assumed world, to develop a core thesis from one’s assumptions and causal principles that is reasoned and logical, and to pursue the argument in a systematic manner that addresses a specific puzzle in an intellectually compelling and empirical plausible manner. As we read different empirical theories, and examine critiques and discussions of theory, and as we try our hand at building on or emulating such theoretical efforts, we ourselves can ‘become theorists.’

An underlying assumption of the course is that the four different ways of analyzing politics examined in this course actually capture four different dimensions of politics: the foreground of political calculation and instrumental action; the background which structures the social pursuit of goals; the connective pattern of meaning (that is, the shared beliefs and collective ideas about politics and society) that permeate both the foreground and background so that political actors in the foreground can calculate and act in ways that relate to the background context; and the dynamic processes which influence the interaction of foreground, background and connective patterning in ways that systematically reshape reality across time.

A recurring theme of the course will be that the egregious misunderstandings and mispredictions of politics generally come in two ways. First, scholars may fail to be explicit and careful in their assumptions, causal arguments,  logic, empirical referents, and so forth, and thus engage in self-deceptive and faulty reasoning about the world. Thus much attention must be given to critical assessment of a theory as a reasoned body of empirical argument. However, it is critical that scholars not become so immersed in and entranced by the logic and empirical applicability of one tradition that they overlook the second major problem that can undermine political inquiry: the tendency towards theoretical myopia or intellectual narrowness. In other words, as scholars focus intensely on one dimension of politics, and one theoretical tradition, they may overlook interactive processes and conditions that occur across the dimensions of political life, and that require attentiveness to several theoretical traditions.

Breakthroughs in addressing particular puzzles about politics thus often come, it will be argued, as two or more theoretical perspectives are combined in ways that allow scholars to address a puzzle in a broad, comprehensive, interactive and reasoned manner. Throughout the course, therefore, we will not only look at works that illustrate particular perspectives but also will look at works that combine perspectives. An additional theme will be that a truly comprehensive understanding of politics requires that we see how foreground, background, patterned meaning and transformative processes are connected and interact in ways that change all three and their patterned connections. In consideration of this possibility, the course  also will consider whether an evolutionary perspective on politics might provide a way of connecting these four dimensions, generating a more comprehensive understanding, and facilitating broader perspectives on politics that lead to intellectual breakthroughs in our empirical analyses.

The organization of the course is as follows. Part One will focus briefly on the nature, role and range of empirical theory in political inquiry and engage in an overview discussion of several illustrative works that attend to multiple theoretical perspectives on politics, across foreground, background and connective patterns. Part Two will attempt to give students a reasonable ‘feel’ for each form of theorizing, and a sense of how they – separately and in combination – relate to empirical inquiry in students’ primary areas of scholarly interest. It will thus carry students across literature on foreground or social choice, background or social structure, connective patterns or social learning, and connective interaction or evolutionary theory. Part Three will then focus on Advanced Topics in Empirical Theory, with students examining more highly developed and challenging concepts, literature and arguments across the four dimensions and theoretical traditions. Part Three thus will extend the students’ repertoire of concepts and arguments from the different traditions. It will also raise the possibility that, as we move across these four traditions, and particularly as we construct ‘process’ theories that systematically entail all four traditions, we are moving towards an ‘evolutionary learning’ theory of politics that may draw on the strengths of each tradition while also generating a broadly encompassing paradigmatic theory that better addresses political phenomena than any of the separate theories can alone.
 

The two core parts of the course divide into two distinct temporal periods. Part Two takes the course to mid-October – at which point we will take a week break for the October 23^th class. Part Three takes up the remainder of the course, with Thanksgiving Break occurring in the middle of this period. During the first break, October 25^th, students will write an initial paper presenting an empirical puzzle that intrigues them, a set of initial theoretical perspectives and arguments about the puzzle that they might pursue, some ideas about how to develop those arguments more fully and systematically, and some strategies for testing the arguments. These papers are to be emailed to Professor Dodd and the entire class no later than November 2nd.  We will briefly discuss them at the start of class on November 8^th. Meanwhile, when students return from the Oct. 23^th break on October 30th^t, we will start Part Three of the course, with students expected to have completed reading for that week while working on their papers. During Part Three we will again look at each theoretical tradition, this time focused more extensively on innovations, problems and breakthroughs within and across the traditions, particularly as generated by the explicit addition of a social psychological perspective on politics. In light of these developments; students will be encouraged to adjust and adapt their theoretical arguments in light of this new material, where appropriate. At the of Part Three, the last week of class, students will make a second set of presentations on the development of their individual theories. Students are encouraged but not required to send class members any revision/augmentation of their written work that is ready by the final class meeting. Final papers, revised to incorporate class comments, will be due during finals week.

This organizational design of the course, it must be stressed, only provides us an initial starting structure for the course, with the instructor reserving the right to alter the design as may prove necessary during the course. In particular, since the course is designed for advanced doctoral students, each of whom has special needs and concerns, to some extent the professor will subject the course, as well as the students, to a week by week ‘trial and error’ assessment of how the learning process is proceeding. If intervention and alteration in the course is needed, he will take it. In particular, he reserves to add additional reading (or remove certain readings) if that should prove necessary. Along the way, as the course proceeds, he will welcome student input, and will seek to shape assignments and course structure in ways that reflect student interests, insights and needs.  It is hoped that by the end of the course students will feel less ‘daunted’ by empirical theory, more assured of their own ability to engage in theorizing, and somewhat settled into general paths of theoretical exploration and discovery in their own selected areas of empirical analysis. A test of goal accomplishment will be the ability to complete the final paper in a way that presents an interesting theoretical argument about some puzzle central to the students’ interests and doctoral dissertation research areas and identifies a research strategy for probing the plausibility of the argument.

Most fundamentally, students entering the course must trust the professor to guide them through a process of learning to ‘do theory’ as best he can, however indirect and erratic that process may appear. I have learned to do theory by reading widely across disciplines so as to get a ‘feel’ for the theoretical process; by reading about theory and theorizing in the natural and biological sciences, as well as in the social sciences; by exploring in depth several contrasting theoretical traditions within the social sciences and political science; and by getting my feet wet through personal efforts at theorizing. The course will introduce students to the range of experiences and literatures that I have embraced in the hope that out of this process, and each in his or her own unique way, students will gain some leverage on the process of doing empirical theory. In the end, therefore, this course must be seen not as the ‘last word’ on empirical theory but simply as an opening probe, with each student responsible for moving beyond the course in response to his or her own reactions to and assessments of the course material. The long term test of this course comes in the extent to which students ‘become theorists’, each true to his or her own voice and vision of politics.

The Questions of the Course: What does it mean to think as a social choice theorist, a social structure theorist, a social learning theorist or a social evolution theorist? Can these ways of thinking be combined? Would the separate or combined ways of theorizing be useful to the student’s specific empirical questions or research puzzle? What sort of argument might the student make about an empirical puzzle if he or she were operating within each separate theoretical tradition? If one were to combine traditions? How might such arguments be explored and tested in an empirically compelling manner? If the student’s arguments prove empirically plausible, what implications might the arguments have for how we better understand politics in the future? These are the questions of this course.

Paper assignments and Grading Standards: I will assign short one to two page papers on a weekly basis throughout the course. These papers will be due to me and to all other students, by email, no later than 6am on the morning of the weekly seminar for which the papers are assigned. In addition, as the course proceeds, students will be assigned weekly class reports, as appears appropriate.

Most importantly, each student is to prepare a class paper on a topic of his or her choice, subject to the approval by the professor. The purpose of the class paper will be to present an empirical theory designed to solve a puzzle about politics that interests the student and to identify a strategy for testing the puzzle that could be realistically pursued in a doctoral dissertation. These papers are to be developed in three stages: a first version – Theory Paper I – will be due to all class members and Professor Dodd by November 4^th; a second version (with revisions optionally shared with all class members prior to the last class) will be presented orally in class on December 6^th, with students expected to send an email version of this presentation to all class members prior to class;  and a final version – Theory Paper II – will be due during Finals Week.

The class grade will be based on the following formula: thirty per cent of the grade will reflect the quality of the short weekly papers and class presentations; twenty per cent will be based on the first draft of your class paper; ten percent will be based on the discussion on December 6th; and forty per cent will be based on the final draft of the paper, as handed in during Finals Week. Quality of papers will be judged by their originality, creativity, organization, clarity, systematic development, stylistic/grammatical appropriateness, intellectual compelling-ness, empirical plausibility/testability, and human insight. Students will be encouraged/guided to clarify as early as possible in the course the empirical puzzle or special concern that they want to examine in their final paper and to write their weekly paper assignments with a special focus on that puzzle. Particular weight will be given to students’ ability to build compelling theoretical arguments in their weekly assignments and their success in designing a systematic argument in the final paper in ways that are both (1) intellectually valuable, interesting and persuasive and (2) clearly susceptible to empirical investigation that is realistic and manageable for a doctoral dissertation project.

Throughout the course assignments, students should remember that the key to empirical theory is its parsimony, comprehensibility, reasoned quality and empirical applicability. Our search is not for obtuseness, arcane complexity, or showy and discursive coverage of a vast and dense literature, but for clarity, for compelling simplicity, for the identification of a core truth that synthesizes apparent complexity into a comprehensible reality, and for a truth that speaks to and makes sense out of empirically observable reality. In so far as you wish to make a complex argument, do so by combining simple concepts and a parsimonious  theory into a broader set of inter-linked theories. There is no better exemplar of complex yet parsimonious empirical theory than the work of Charles Darwin on biological evolution. Students thus are encouraged throughout the course to read Origin of Species, guided in this endeavor by Ernst Mayr’s book, One Long Argument, and to be attentive to the theory of biological evolution as an example of how a complex and seemingly inexplicable reality can be subjected to parsimonious empirical explanation through systematic theorizing. Students are also encouraged, during this course and afterwards, to read widely in the history and philosophy of science, seeking thereby to better appreciate the nature of scientific inquiry and the role of empirical theory in it.

Required Reading: As to required reading, the books listed below are for sale at local bookstores for use during the course. Other books and articles will be placed on reserve or made available by xeroxing.

Books:
Paul Pierson, Politics in Time
Michael Laver, Private Desires, Political Action
Graham Allison, Essence of Decision
Agryis and Schoen, Organizational Learning II
Donald Green and Ian Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice
William Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation
William Riker, Liberalism Against Populism
Charles Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons
George Tsebeis, Nested Games
Karl Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing
Karl Weick, Sensemaking
Bryan Jones, Reconceiving Decision-Making in Democratic Politics
Bryan Jones, Politics and the Architecture of Choice
Kenneth Shepsle and Mark Bonchek, Analyzing Politics
George Marcus, Russell Neuman and Michael MacCuen, Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment
Robert Wright, The Moral Animal
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene
Leslie Anderson and Lawrence Dodd, Learning Democracy

Code for Reading Assignments:

The reading for this course is necessarily heavy, given the topics it is covering and the advanced nature of the training it is providing. To guide you as you prioritize the reading, you can utilize the following codes:

***read closely: required for class

            **read for major points: will supplement class discussion

*read as time permits: for greater depth, during the course or later

Reading Assignments:

Week One: Class Organization

Week Two: Introduction: Science, Theory and Empirical Inquiry

            Required Reading: Overview Issues:

 1. The Nature of Political/Social Theory

 ***Leslie Thiele, Thinking Politics, Chapter One: “Theory and Vision”

             ***Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry, Chapters  8:  “Theories”

             ***Evelyn Fox Keller, Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth-Century Biology, “Preface”

                                and Part One, “Language and Science”

 ***Karl Deutsch, The Nerves of Government, Pages 3 - 54

             2. Examples of Political/Social Theory

             ***Robert Dahl, Polyarchy, Chapters 1-4

             ***Anthony Downs, article from An Economic Theory of Democracy

 ***Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162: 1243-1248 (1968)

 **Robert Wright, The Moral Animal, ‘Introduction’***

Class email assignment: Identify one or two empirical puzzles of particular interest two you, which might be the focus of a research project or dissertation: discuss the nature of the puzzles. How do the readings from this week inform your thinking about the puzzles, the use of theory in addressing them, and theoretical perspectives you might draw on in pursuing them?

Individual Email Assignments:

1. What constitutes the critical elements of ‘theory’ as articulated by Leslie Paul Thiele, and how would his formulation apply to ‘empirical theory.’
2. What does Kaplan mean by ‘theory’ and how would his perspective be a guide for our discussion of ‘empirical theory’?
3. Of what relevance are metaphors in scientific theory, from Keller’s perspective, and how does that relate to the study of empirical theory in political science?
4. What are the major kinds of ‘empirical theory’ that have been dominant historically, from

The perspective of Karl Deutsch, and what would be there relevance today?

5. When thinking about ‘creating a theory,’ what lessons would you draw from Dahl’s work in  Polyarchy? What was/were the most central things Dahl did in creating his theory?
6. What lessons would you draw from Downs’ work on An Economic Theory of Democracy, as seen in the assigned article? What was the most central thing or things Downs did to create his theory?
7. 7. What about Hardin? What was/were the most central thing or things he did?
8. Of what relevance is Darwin and his theory of evolution to social and political theory, from Wright’s perspective

Thought Question: What is Empirical Theory: how do you know one when you see it, how do you ‘get’ one, of what use is it, and why is it called ‘empirical’?

Week Three: Multiple Perspectives on the World

            Required and Suggested Reading:

1.   Empirical Complexity, Multiple Dimensions and the Varieties of Theory:

***Richard Dawkins, “Preface” to the 1989 edition of The Selfish Gene

    *Ernst Mayr, “Epilogue: Towards a Science of Science” in The Growth of Biological Thought

***Gregory Bateson, Mind and Nature, Chapter 3, “Multiple Versions of Reality”

***Robert E. Goodin, “Institutions and Their Design,” in Goodin, ed., The Theory of Institutional

 Design

2.        Explaining the Resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis:

                   ***Allison and Zelikow, The Essence of Decision: All

`                  *Breslauer and Tetlock, Learning in U.S. and Soviet Foreign Policy, Ch. 20.

3.        Explaining the Republican Revolution:

       **Dodd, “Re-Envisioning Congress: Theoretical Perspectives on Congressional Change” in

 Congress Reconsidered, 7^th or 8^th edition (Available on Dodd’s department homepage; briefly

 review if previously read).

4.        Explaining the Eurocentric Nature of the Modern World

                   ***Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, Prologue, Chapters 1,2,3

5.        Explaining the Collapse and Survival of Societies

       ***Jared Diamond, Collapse, Prologue (Pages 1-24), Chapter Two

Other Suggested Reading:

For an introduction to Darwin’s The Origin of Species, see Ernst Mayr, One Long Argument, Chs 4, 6, 8, 9

Email Assignments:

1. First describe Bateson’s argument in “Multiple Versions of the World” and assess its relevance to empirical theories of politics and then discuss what Dawkins sees as the power of a ‘change in vision,’ in ‘transfigurative terms,’ for scientific inquiry and how might that perspective apply to political inquiry _____Audrey; Donald_____
2. Describe Allison’s multiple visions or theories of the Cuban Missile Crisis and assess their utility – separately and together – in explaining the crisis and its resolution.____ Jordan; Paulina; Dan___
3. Describe Dodd’s multiple perspectives on the Republican Revolution and assess their utility – separately and together – in explaining it.____ Jonathan; Lance____
4. Describe Diamond’s opening perspective on the Eurocentric nature of the modern world and assess the ways in which multiple theories or vision generate this perspective.____Ramon: Josh
5. Describe Diamond’s opening perspective on the Collapse and Survival of Societies and assess the ways in which multiple theories or visions generate this perspective.___Upohar; Jackie____

Thought Question:

        Why are multiple perspectives of politics useful in explaining phenomena and how might they be useful to your perspective on your puzzle?

Week Four: Social Choice Theory I

NOTE: The purpose of the reading this week is to introduce you to the nature of rational choice theory, to some of the major foundation themes and works in rational choice analysis, to the utility of rational choice in empirical research, and to some critical assessments of rational choice theory and research.

1.       Introduction to Rational Choice Analysis

                    Michael Laver, Private Desires, Political Action, Chaps 1, 2, 8 ***

       Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Chapter 8 ***

                   Downs, “The Origins of An Economic Theory of Democracy” in Bernard Grofman, ed., Information, Participation and Choice*

          Green and Shapiro, Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory, Preface, Chap 1, 2***

        Fiorina, “Rational Choice, Empirical Contributions, and the Scientific Enterprise” in Critical Review, Vol 9, # 1-2,Winter-Spring,1995**            

2.       Rationality and Arrow’s Paradox

          Shepsle and Bonchek, Analyzing Politics, Chapters 1-4***

3.      The Dilemma of Collective Action

Laver, Private Desires, Chapters  3 and 4***

Mancur Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, Introduction and Chapters 1,2,6*

Green and Shapiro, Pathologies, Chapter 5***

Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation, at least the first four chapters

4.   Voting and the Logic of Party Competition

        Laver, Private Desires, Chapter 5, 6***

                    Melvin J. Hinich and James Enelow, The Spatial Theory of Voting: An Introduction.*

(See also the Enelow and Hinich edited volume, Advances in the Spatial Theory of Voting).

Green and Shapiro, Pathologies, Chapter 7***

5.   The Theory of Political Coalitions

         Laver, Private Desires, Chapter 7***

         Riker, The Theory of Political Coalitions, Chapters 1,2,3***

     Dodd, “Party Coalitions in Multiparty Parliaments” American Political Science Review 68: 1093-1117**

6.       Context, Choice and Social Evolution

           Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, Chapters 4,5,6***

***=must read closely

  **=read for general illustration and argument

    *=read for background or advanced explanation

Email Assignments: To be emailed to all class participants by the morning of class:

            1.    What is the general defining nature of Rational Choice theory in terms of the type of core arguments it makes, particularly as seen in the foundation works?:__Paulina_

2.        What is Arrow’s paradox and its significance for understanding politics?__ Jonathan____

3.    What is the Collective Action dilemma , its empirical plausibility and research applicability?__Josh___

4.    What are political entrepreneurs and why are they important? _Donald_

5.    Why is it rational to vote, how can a voter cast a rational vote, and what is the relevance of Fiorina’s ‘retrospective’ voting model to these

            6.    What is the Downsian Logic of Party Competition, its empirical plausibility and research applicability (with special attention to the Frolich, Oppenheimer

7.    What is Riker’s minimum winning coalition, its empirical plausibility and

research applicability, and how did Dodd utilize it in his book, Coalitions in

Parliamentary Government?____Jordan_____

8.    What are, and how convincing are, the general issues confronting the foundation

themes of rational choice analysis, from the perspective of Green and Shapiro,

particularly with respect to empirical plausibility and research

applicability?_Lance; Jackie__

               9.   How did context and choice interact in the early stages of food production to shape the ‘roots’ of ‘guns, germs and steel’ and how do these patterns

Week Five: Social Choice Theory II

The Meaning of Social Choice Theory

 William H. Riker, “Political Theory and the Art of Heresthetics” in Ada Finifter,

Political Science: The State of the Discipline, 1983***

             Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation, Preface and Conclusion***

             Riker, Liberalism vs. Populism:

a. read Analytical Table of Contents, Chaps 1-5;**

                                b. read closely pages xi-xii. 1-39, 59-64, 111-113, 115-6, 136***

              Shepsle and Bonchek, Analyzing Politics, Chaps 4 thur 6**

2.       Strategic Voting

Riker, The Art of Political Manipulation, Chaps 7,8,9,11,5,4***

Riker, Liberalism vs. Populism, Chap 6**

3.       Agenda Control

Art, Chaps 3,7,12***

Liberalism vs. Populism, Chap 7**

4.       Manipulation of dimensions

Art, 1,2,5,6,10,4***

Liberalism vs Populism, Chaps 8,9**

5.    Conclusions, Critiques, Applications and Extensions

Liberalism vs Populism, Chap 10***               

            Green and Shapiro, Pathologies, Chapter 8**

     Jeffrey Friedman, “Economic Approaches to Politics,” in Critical Review Vol 9, #1-2, Winter/Spring, 1995; pages 1-24; also see the other

Tsebelis, Nested Games, Chaps 1--4***

                Email Assignments:

1.       What is the conflict between liberalism and populism, why does it matter, and  how can it be addressed or resolved?__Audrey, Paulina____

2.       What is the General Possibility Theorem, why does it exist, and why does it matter?____Ramon_____

3.       What is the nature and significance of strategic voting, and what are its implications for empirical theory and research?____Josh, Jackie____

4.       What is the nature and significance of agenda control, and what are its implications  for empirical theory and research?____Jordan, Lance____

5.       What is the nature and significance of dimension manipulation, and what are its implications for empirical theory and research?__Upohar___

6.       The “Political Theory and the Art of Heresthetics” Riker discusses some areas that experience equilibria, in contrast to others that do not. What differentiates the former from the latter, in your opinion? What are the implications of your answers for empirical theory and research?___Dan__

7.       What are nested games, how vital is this concept for studying politics, and what are its implications for the role of context in political analysis?___Jonathan___

8.       On balance, what is the value and the implications of social choice theory for political inquiry?___Donald__

Week Six: Social Structure I

I.                     The Idea of Social Structure

a.        groups and social structure

i.         hunter-gathers, farmers and the evolution of social structure

Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, Chs 4-10 ***

                               ii.       economic arrangements and social class

                                     Walton,  “Social Class and Inequality,” Chapter Three

                                      in Walton, Sociology and Critical Inquiry ***

                                `    Manley, “The Significance of Class in American History

                                     and Politics,” in Dodd and Jillson, New Perspectives **

                                iii.      race, ethnicity and gender

          Hero, “Two-Tiered Pluralism” and McDonaugh, “Gender Politics" In Dodd and Jillson, New Perspectives ***

                                iv.    groups, political geography and ‘false consciousness’

                                        Key, “Introduction,” Southern Politics **

b.       socio-political divisions and structural politics

i.         the power elite

Mills, The Power Elite*

                              ii.     factions, cleavages and institutional design

Madison, Federalist #10***

Dahl, A Preface to Democratic Theory, Chs 1,3,4,5*

Lipset and Rokkan, “Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and

            Voter Alignments,” In Lipset and Rokkan, eds.,

            Party Systems and Voter Alignments **

                               iii.      associations, political geography and ‘ path dependencies’         

                                                Putnam, Making Democracy Work, Chs. 5 and 6**

                               iv.     pluralism in the real world

                                                Dahl, Who Governs? *

c.        regimes, state structures and authority arrangements

  i.      socialism vs capitalism           

                                         Przeworski, Democracy and the State, Ch 3**

                                ii.     dictatorship and democracy

          Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy,

Foreward by Friedman and Scott, Preface and Chapter 7*

                                 iii.     institutional design, social relations and system ‘outputs’          

                                         Skocpol, “The Origins of Social Policy…” in Dodd and Jillson, Dynamics of American Politics ***

                                         Diamond, Collapse, Ch. Nine***

     iv.     the state and revolution

             Skocpol, States and Social Revolution, Read Preface,

              Chs 1,2,3,4, pages 275-283, and Ch 7*

II.                   The Study of Social Structure

a.       middle-range and functional analysis

Merton, On Theoretical Sociology, Chs. 2,3*

b.       critical sociology

Walton, Sociology and Critical Inquiry, pages 1-63*

        Pages 64-82 are recommended

c.        structural analysis, big-time

Tilly, Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons***

III.                 Social Choice and Social-Structural Analysis

a.        Przeworski, Democracy and the Market, Chs 3,4, “Conclusions”**

b.       Tsebalis, Nested Games, review Ch 1, read Chs 5-8**

c.        Anderson and Dodd, Learning Democracy, Chs 1,2,9***

Email Assignments:

1.        To what extent is the emergence of social structure (a) shaped by deep background

factors such as climate and geography, (b) a product of direct human agency, foresight and choice, (c) an outgrowth of unseen autocatalytic processes and (d) a result of other factors?

See Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: review Chs. 1-3; read Chs. 4-10__Josh, Upohar__

2.        How critical are such social categories as class, ethnicity, race and gender for comprehending socio-political reality, and in what ways do these concepts qualify, inform or move analysis beyond reliance on social choice as one’s primary strategy of inquiry? How does critical attention to history, and to such things as the distribution of classes or races geographically, help inform our interpretation of their role and significance in politics? ___Jackie______

    Jack Levy, “Learning and Foreign Policy: Sweeping a 

                    Conceptual MinefieldJack.” International Organization 

                    Vol. 48, No. 2 (Spring, 1994), pp. 279-312: available on 

                    JStor

    Kassel, Working Draft: “Experiential Learning in the 

                    Founding Era: Establishing a Capitol City”