Political science

Political science Module 1 What is Politics? - Politics includes but is not limited to the actions of the government - Government refers to the institution that makes and enforce public rules Is government necessary? - Some people believe it is and some believe they are not The prisoner's dilemma (game theory) - A way of predicting social outcomes Assumptions - Individual rationality: choose whatever gives them more benefits than cost Assume there's no government in place - People could make rational decisions and yet end up with socially irrational outcomes historically governments have emerged due to conquest and exploitation Note: All theories are based on assumptions - Not all people act on rationality, most people act on empathy and reputation - Cooperation may be more durable as game theory suggests - Game theory might be self affirmative ideology justifying hierarchy as necessary when its not Politics: about power, about the forces which influence and reflect its distribution and use (not about government alone) - Political power comes in different forms ➢ Coercion: the use or threat to us a unequally distributed resource (you are forcing someone to do something they don't want to do) ➢ Influence: Don't need to force if you could influence, it is created and produced ➢ Authority: based on obligation and illegitimacy, subtle form of power that controls our lives All governments rely on different combinations of coercion, influence, and authority. We are governed via multiple types of power. Module 2 Democracy: is a hegemonic, sets a parameter of how political power should be organized and controlled What is Democracy - Comes from greek word Demos - The political reality: Democracy is historically, institutionally, and culturally varied - Two key types of direct democracy and indirect democracy

Direct Democracy - Form of governance where political power lies directly in the hands of people that are affected by its use - “Citizens make the rules” Historical Example: - Ancient Athens ➢ Citizens were more involved ➢ In assembly laws were made ➢ Every citizen had the right to speak and elect Direct democracy in Canada - Referendum ➢ Government directly pulls the public to find out their opinion on a given issue ➢ In canada held by federal government and provinces ➢ 3 referendum in canada, 1898,1892,1992 - Voter Initiative ➢ Momentum starts from people ➢ Put a petition and enough people sign it, referendum takes place provincial level ➢ British columbia- 1 successful voter initiative - Recall ➢ Can recall politician and new election can take place ➢ If enough signature go on petition ➢ Provincial level The historical reality of direct democracy in Ancient Athens was less- democratic for anyone other than male citizens - Early democracy was more restricted ➢ Women did not have the same right to form a political participation as men ➢ Foreigners ➢ slaves - Ancient Greek theorists ➢ Were almost all hostile to the direct democracy of the ancient athens ➢ Democracy isn't just wise but its also dangerous - Direct democracy as mob rule Indirect democracy - Key historical example of indirect democracy in United states ➢ The federalist Papers, 1787,1788 ➢ The author rejects the type of direct democracy characteristics of athens - Factions ➢ Within a faction, people have common interests but between factions there might be different interest (sometimes contradictory factions) ➢ Factions look to the world through interest

➢ In 2015 the percentage of people voting is 77% - Limits of Modern Democracy ➢ Distance between the people and political power ➢ Voter turnout rate has decreased significantly from the late 1950s up until the present in canada ➢ Voter turnout rate has also decreased in United States - Over what areas of life should “the people” be able to exercise democratic control? ➢ Marxist have been very critical of the divide between the public and private, say it an artificial divide ➢ Private sphere, power circulates in it and it doesn't circulate equally with people, more people in the private sphere have more power than others ➢ People who have power have the power to influence the public sphere when it comes to public decisions ➢ Wealth affects coercion, provides certain protection against the state ➢ Influence is caused by the private media, which is largely owned by the wealthy individuals - Authority, who is more likely to be able to become an elected mp, prime minister or judge, someone who has wealth or if you don't? - If you have unequal concentrations of power in a private economy it will spill over and influence public decisions - Democracy and capitalists for marxists, these things can't exist simentensly - Territory limitation ➢ Democracy popular power should be inside a state but possibly doesn't go beyond the borders of it ➢ With the spread of democracy inside, the borders around democracy become much more restricted with respect to aliens and non-citizens ➢ Should democracy go past borders like social media - David Held ➢ Makes you rethink why democracy should be scaled territory 1) National decisions increasingly have internations repercussions 2) Political influence is increasingly exercised by multinational private actors (cooperation) 3) Political decisions are already being made by international organizations - If we moved on to an era of globalizations, does that mean we moved on to an era of globalization, does that mean we need to rethink the way democracy is practiced? ➢ Alternative ● Construct Democratic world government - But if created, it's dangerous. If law created is intolerable, you can't go anywhere

- Cosmopolitan Democracy (David Held) ➢ Stop thinking about democracy in the way it is terriorialy structured ➢ Democracy is overlapping spheres, where a person could have membership in multiple communities ➢ Membership in all the communities where decision affects their lives - The link between democracy and territory should be rethought: a) Regional parliaments ➢ Regionalization is happening fast, links between states and people living in a given region are developing more intensely ➢ Create regional political organizations b) More powerful (and more democratic) International organizations, so people have more of a role in making decisions c) Embed common democratic/human rights principles into the constitutions of all states and international organizations d) Reform the United Nations e) Control the power of corporations Module 3 Liberty Leberalism - A second model for organizing government and society (maximizing individual freedom) Classical liberalism (17th-19th Century) - Government is there to protect the natural rights and freedom of citizens (John Locke) Adam Smith (1723-1790) 3 duties of government 1) Protect society from invasion 2) Protect members of society from each other 3) The duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual of small number of individuals to erect and maintain Public goods: goods individuals want and goods society will benefit from but will not be spontaneously provided by society without some sort of course mechanisms like the government in place Example: Light house Government action is the exception not the rule Classical Liberist - Have a justification for why the laissez faire economy, why the free market is the ideal type of economy

John Stuart Mill What type of policy should navigate speech? - Say whatever we want, if not what are the limits On liberty: - Mills research question: The nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by socially over the individual - How much power should society have over individual action? ➢ Mills believed people should be free to do whatever they want, provided that they don't harm other people in doing so ➢ Individual sphere, first absolute freedom of opinion and sentiment of all subjects i.e freedom of thought and speech ➢ Mills book what freedom of speech looks like consists of hypothesis, objectives and response to those objections ➢ Secondary of freedom is action ➢ Finally freedom of association ➢ Mills not limiting the potential threat to government, governmental power is one source of danger but also talking about society and potential role that society can play in compromising people's freedom in these areas ➢ He wants an environment where people are free from obstruction of both types ➢ Almost every action has an indirect consequence Why should Liberty be the guiding principle for society? - Utility: freedom of speech/action is beneficial not only for the individuals, but for society as a whole - Individual creativity: is something that requires a roam of freedom - Mills also argued that society itself benefits from having this open liberal environment - He says the only unfailing and permanent source of improvement is liberty Freedom of thought/speech - Doesn't matter how unpopular your opinion is, society should not censor it - If society censors it they're taking away a benefit, i,e. Censorship causes harm Mill argues that freedom of speech is useful regardless of the context of the opinion being expressed 1) Consider the possibility that the opinion that you want to censor is actually true ➢ If this is the case, if we censor the opinion we are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth a) Aren't some things self-evidently true (and other things self- evidently false)? ➢ Just because you held in common with many people that doesn't necessarily mean your right b) Aren't some ideas too useful to challenge? ➢ How do we know if the opinion is useful without debating it There is an implicit assumption in Mill that the truth is always useful 2) Consider the possibility that the opinion you want to censor is actually false?

- Censoring a opinion society loses what is almost as great benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth produced by its collision with error - Truth can sharpen itself A) Truth is no longer forced to defend itself, if you censor opposition to the truth, society may know why the truth is right but have no idea why other opinions contrary to the truth are wrong - Protecting the truth from false info makes it worse B) If the truth is not fearfully challenged, will people live the truth, like the way it is when it is challenged? - Will we believe our belief if they are not constantly defending themselves - Truth doesn't have an impact on how you live 3) Consider the possibility that the conflicting doctrines instead of being one true and the other false share the truth between them - For the whole truth to emerge, vigorous opposition to partial truths must be tolerated TO SUM: Mill argues that diversity of opinion is a strength, not a weakness MIlls explicit limit on speech - Don not harm people - Words that lead to harmful acts Additional limits to liberty in Mills a) To whom should the liberty principle apply? - Liberty as a principle, has no application to any state of things anterior to the time when mankind have biome capable of being improved by free and equal discussion - Assumption that the better argument wins the day b) What does ‘free and equal’ discussion imply? - Does the unequal distribution of power in society have an impact on which voices get heard? Module 4

- Multiple groups have the opportunity to capture the power of the state - Much more participation than classical elite theorist - Might be competition but there's not that much equal participation Do we have meaningful political equality in modern liberal-democratic societies? Can we have meaningful political equality in modern liberal democratic societies? - It depends on who you ask, according to elite theory, the answer is no tp both these questions… and yet elite theory tells us very little about the character of social and political life Regardless of the type of system, there will always be inequality in power, the few will control power, the many will not, the best you could hope for is a circulation of elites but not the elimination of elite rule: Two Models - Individual level natural differences ➢ unequal distribution of talents, some people have talents to simply dominate the domain ➢ But having a talent in one are doesnt mean it could help at another place - Organizational structure ➢ Iron Law of Oligarchy: Organizations over time become more bureaucratic, they then become more dominated by elites inside that bureaucracy Informal organizations also become bureaucratic but what explains them for example the economy Where do elites come from? How is inequality produced? How and Why does its form change over time? Karl Max - In order to understand inequality, you have to understand the social systems within it emerges, specifically inequality, doesn't matter what inequality youre talking about but inequality in all forms is product of the economic system that produces it - Not all economic systems produce inequality but the right system will eliminate it - According to Marx it may in fact be inevitable - To understand Marx thought, you need to understand the Industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution Before - It was a period of rapid technological innovations - Social changes taking place - Primary means of accumulating wealth and power was force

- Physical coercion was the dominant means of accumulating wealth and power prior to industrial revolution - When it hits, capitalism begins emerge - Markets take an increasingly central role, as everything goes through the market - New type of working class: Industrial working class - Industrial revolution changed the way labour worked - New class of industrial factory owners - Saw a push of political changes What caused capitalism to emerge? What does the future hold? - The answer lies in economy a) The means (forces) of production b) The relations of production - Those who the means of production are the bourgeois - Those who do not own it are the prolatary - Members of an economic class act in predictable ways - Objective of bourgeois to squeeze labour to make money Marx - Marx notes that the economy is ecstatic, changes over the course of time - Class conflict drives the economy (and hence society itself) from one mode of production to another - For Marx capitalism will transition into something else, which is communism - With communism inequality ends - The economy is base upon which the rest of society is built Political power, ideological power, legal power, religion all are used to help maintain an unequal economic system 1) You need to understand economy particularly class power 2) The state is a instrument of the dominant economic class, it help to perpetuate an unequal economic system 3) Capitalism contains its own internal contradictions, it increasing polarizes wealth and this world lead to a revolution below 4) That revolution from below will lead to a new mode of production communism, a system which is characterized by true equality Where is the revolution? - Lennon helps form the soviet union - Problem has to do with the superstructure - Prevents them from seeing the bigger picture - Vanguard party would seize its power on behalf of the working class - It would operate in their true interest because it understood the big picture - Communist party would represent the ultimate expression of the working class democracy because it was serving the true interest of the working class

- Inside the parliament, long standing antagonizm speak between the three estates began to erupt, ended up with the third estate seizing power, overturning the estates general and replacing it with a national assembly, new parliament - The new parliament is not based on which estate you belong to, but one where estates don't exist, all are equal - Assembly created a constitutional monarchy, restructure political order - Restraints on the monarch, changes didn't end there - Monarch was eliminated, got rid of a lot of stuff - 1792 france declared republic - Political power project attempted to overturn the existing order and replace it with something fundamentally different and better - In practice, the french revolution looked different by 1793 we see the creation of the comidy of public safety - Period known as terror, enemies had to be eliminated to protect new revolution, everyone dealt with by the guillotine - All of this was coming to end, because of the coming to power of Napoleon as emperor(a leader every bit of dictatorial as the absolute monarch replaced) - The french revolution had international implications, didn't just stay in france, they were interested in exporting the ideas internationally - Best way to do this was war, monarchies in other states in europe also saw what's happening in france and were concerned - Net result was World War Burke - predicted that the french revolution would end in tyranny - In fact any type of revolutionary project is likely to end in disaster Abstract ideas about individual right and freedoms distorts our understanding of social reality - Burke said you have to start with society, what hold society together? - Burke suggests the effective liberty to individuals is that they may do what the please, we ought to see what it will please them to do before we risk What is the glue that holds society together? - Need to start with society, not individuals - Rather like living organisms not individuals - All organs are necessary for that organism - Like society, characterized by many roles - Societies are made up of complex relationships between people, eliminating it can create social problems Problem with the French revolution was they had an ideal map, based upon abstract ideas, then tried to impose that map on society These are simple reasons why revolutionary plans so often fail to work: a) Individual reasoning is error-prone and imperfect

- Society is too complex - We don't always understand the purposes behind practices that actually exist - Don't know the consequences b) Reason only partially guides our behaviour - Humans don't act based solely on reason and logic - We often use reason to justify our desires - When human being acquire power,they sometimes change - In the process of implementing the revolutionary plan, things could go significantly differently In sum: attempting to remedy imperfection can make things worse rather than better…. The attempt to force real society to fit into an abstract scheme can produce perverse outcomes What do we construct a workable polity? - For conservatives, what we need are institutions that will teach us self- restraint - Most important restraint can be taught to us by our post/ traditions - Tradition is the key glue that holds society together Is change ever good? - If you attempt to suppress all change you'll harm society - Changes is something conservatives accept - What matters to conservatives is the way it's brought about, rather than revolutionary change, they support evolutionary change, modification rather than overthrow - Burke says do altercations gradually, allow society to adapt and adjust instead of getting rid of problems all at once What should the government look like? - There is no single answer - Depends on history and tradition of society in question - The goal is to promote a process, respect the past, change things gradually more likely to create an ideal society Critique: What about remedying systemic injustice in the here and now - If the traditional social order is the cause of injustice, if its system wide problem, then keeping those traditions allow us to be perpetuated - Revolution may be the only way of eliminating the injustice and recreating social harmony

- 1993: the first female prime minister of canada (Kim campbell) 2) Reform Liberal Feminism - The right to equal participation in law does not always result in equality in practice - The reason: legal obstacles are not the only barrier that women face, more subtle structural barriers are often at work - These structural barriers have the effect of denying women equality of opportunity - For example: it is more difficult for women to fully participate in the public sphere because of the responsibilities that patriarchy has assigned in the private sphere - Politically this mean changes to government policy (including in some cases affirmative action) to facilitate women's participation in the public realm as equals Critiques of liberal feminism from within the femenist tradition - The liberal feminist account aligns too closely with mainstream potraichy thought - Including its binary assumptions about gender, as well as its political goals - Should the goals of feminism be removing obstacles to joining the current patriarchal system? Or should the goal be overturning patriarchal entirely? Clarifying observations - Feminism is a theoretical perspective - Feminism is not a marker of a person's gender - Feminist theory is not monolithic Economic inequality - Hourly earning ages of 25-54 - Women earn 13.3% less than men - Women earn 0.87 for every doller mean earn University education earning a BA - Women can expect to earn 12% less on average than men Lets say you wnat an MA and PhD - For full professors at mcmaster that are male, average salary is just over 179 thousand, females average salary is just over 149 thousand - 30 thousand gap Political Inequality - Record 98 women were elected in canadas 43rd parliament How high is it? - 98 women= 29% of elected MPs 2019 elections - For the conservative: 32% of candidates were women

- For the liberal, 39% were women - For the greens, 46% were women - For the NDP, 49% were women In the 2019 election, only 3% of writings had one male candidate or less, 30% writings had one female candidate or less - Just 1 in 4 parliamentarians in worldwide is a women - Women constitute 50% of the world's population, but they only make sup 25% of the worlds political representatives 2020 - 19 of the worlds heads of government are women 10% out of 193 countries - 14 national cabinet - 4 national legislature The U.S - There has never been a female president in the 2016 election, hillary clinton was the nominee for the democratic party

- The lieutenant governor (provincial level) are appointed by the governal general appointed by prime ministers - Truedeau was asked to become president by governor general - Governor general appoints senator and judges - He consent is needed to create laws b) The powers of the crown are only exercised “on the advice of the government of the day” - Told what to do with their power - Written vs practice - “The queen reigns but does not rule” - The power of the crown is largely symbolic in practice… however there have been cases when the governor general has said no to a sitting prime minister (examples in video 14:00 8a) - Governor general makes sure there is a prime minister Three cases 1) Prime minister Charles tupper 1896 - Just had general election, tupper lost - Tupper decides to stay as prime minister - Tries to use power to attempt to appoint senator and judges - He presents list to governor general and he said no 2) 1926 King bing affair - The government of mackenzie king - Scandal in the government - His decision was to dissolve parliament and call elections - Bing says no - Bing asks arthur mehan to form a government - Mackenzie king returns as government 3) 2008 - General election occurred, no one party won majority - Conservative under power take power but don't have majority - The NDP and liberals were going to form a coalition - Sent a petition to governor general saying they don't have confidence in harper - Harper asked for parogment and if it is paroag harper is still prime minister - Governor general said yes 4) 2017 British columbia - Just had provincial election, no majority seats - June 29 NDP and greens combine vote and vote non confidence on liberal - Christie clasrk went to lieutenant governor to dissolve government and legislature assembly and call for new election - Lieutenant governor said no - Going to ask leader of NDP to become premier Crown can be very significant at times

Should Canada eliminate its ties to the monarchy? Supporters of monarchy 1) Symbolic reason - Crown is a non partisan politically neutral symbol of the entire state - Prime minister is partisan 2) Role of the crown can play when crisis develops - Crown can make immediate decision - Thought of as insurance policy The Prime Minister and Cabinet - They are the ones who utilize the executive power Cabinet - The leadership group in government - Includes the prime minister and individuals that the prime minister recommends to the governor general - Governor general then appoints them as cabinet ministers in certain areas - Number of ministers and positions are determined by prime minister The PMs decisions is guided by certain conventions a) A cabinet member should be a member of parliament b) Provinces should receive some representation - Provinces can have some type of voice c) Different social groups should be represented Powers of cabinet 1. Prime minister as spokesperson for the cabinet will advise the governor general who to appoint as certain things 2. Leadership - Determining where the ship of state should be sailed - Where should we prioritized - Most legislations and all money legislation is initiated by cabinet - Cabinet controls the agenda of parliament - The prime minister exercises most of the executive power in practice Prime ministers power a) The power to select and dismiss cabinet members b) The power to control cabinet meetings c) The head of the governing party - Can determine if you could be apart of the party - Australia (Example) - Four prime ministers that have been overthrown by their own party - Canada cannot really do that so it's not as democratic - Can vote no confidence but another election will take place and people would lose jobs