Basic Political Concepts
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Basic Political Concepts
Paul deLespinasse
Copyright © 2008 by Paul deLespinasse
Edited by Marisa Drexel
For any questions about this text, please email: drexel@uga.edu
The Global Text Project is funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland
This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
Basic Political Concepts 2 A Global Text
Table of Contents
Towards a Systematic Conceptualization of Politics....................................................................4
1. Concepts of Decision-Making and Action..................................................................................6
2. Concepts of Human Association...............................................................................................14
3. Developing Conceptual Acuity..................................................................................................26
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Towards a Systematic
Conceptualization of Politics
Political science is the systematic study of governments, of the methods by which governments seek to control
people, and of the techniques through which people try to influence government. It is a science that attempts to
connect the "micro" level of individual lives and actions with the "macro" level of collective circumstances and
consequences.
Like the other social sciences, political science focuses on all three basic types of social power: the pen, the
purse, and the sword. Unlike the other social sciences, it gives special attention to the power of the sword: wielded
collectively in the form of war and threats of war, wielded against individuals—ideally— in the more civilized form
of laws.
Every body of knowledge has at least a few basic words that students had better understand in the fullest
possible sense. For the physicist, "force" must equal mass times acceleration. Accountants must understand that
"assets" are equal to liabilities plus owners' equity (capital) and must be able to classify particular transactions into
the proper categories. Music theorists must know the difference between a second inversion and a secondary
dominant. Political science is no exception to this general need for fundamental concepts.
Unfortunately, political scientists and lawyers—the two main professions concerned with analyzing government
—have not identified a small set of simple, core concepts whose permutations and combinations get to the essence
of the matter. Instead, both professions are blessed (or cursed!) with a great multiplicity of terms and concepts, all
of roughly equal importance, whose mutual relations and meanings are extremely complex.
As a result of its lack of fundamental conceptual clarity, political science increasingly suffers from an inferiority
complex. Chemistry and physics have produced a continuous and accelerating stream of spectacular
accomplishments which are reflected, for better or for worse, in the everyday material environment: computers,
synthetic fabrics, lasers, microwave ovens, TV, atomic bombs, pesticides. . . . A similar takeoff in biological science
appears to be shaping up. But where do we see any signs that political science is having an impact on the world?
It is true that in the political sphere, too, many new techniques and institutions have appeared, but our
professional inferiority complex is nevertheless based on an embarrassing fact. Major innovations in 20th century
government have not originated in political science. The pattern is quite unlike that in the natural sciences, where
breakthroughs in fundamental analysis (e.g. Einstein's E = mc squared) are placed on a practical basis by the
engineers (e.g. the Manhattan Project). In public life, by contrast, the breakthroughs are made by the "engineers"
(active politicians: elected officials, administrators, revolutionaries) and later, often much later, political scientists
get around to noticing them, describing them, and criticizing them.
Basic Political Concepts 4 A Global Text
The goal of Basic Political Concepts is to provide exactly what the title suggests: a small set of carefully defined
and interrelated words that can be used to describe and analyze a wide range of political phenomena and issues.
Chapter 1 focuses on concepts useful in analyzing individual decisions and actions, which surely are the basic "stuff"
of politics. Chapter 2 introduces concepts related to associations, the relationships between individuals that are
created by their actions. Chapter 3, "Developing Conceptual Acuity", illustrates some ways in which we can
systematically increase our ability to think systematically about politics. It is an invitation for the student to think
creatively, to join in the continual rethinking of political issues that is a prerequisite of progress.
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1. Concepts of Decision-
Making and Action
The elements of ad hoc rational action
Let us consider the possibilities implicit in the following expression:
A → X + Y
(Imagine that there is a large capital C surrounding the letter A in this expression. To simplify transmitting this
book via the World Wide Web, it is not explicitly stated here.)
The elements of the expression are (shown in Table 1):
Table 1: Key for elements in expression
X a goal
A an action
C the circumstances of the action
Y side effects produced by the action
→ causation or expected causation
In plain English, the expression says: Action A, taken within circumstances C in pursuit of goal X, also causes
side effects Y.
For example, when US President Gerald Ford took the action of pardoning US President Richard Nixon, during
the post-Watergate witch hunt, to try to get public attention back on serious issues, a side effect of his action was to
decrease his own chances for winning in 1976. (There are, of course, other possible interpretations of Mr Ford's
reasons for the pardon.)
As the C in our expression indicates, all actions take place within specific circumstances. But initially we can
ignore circumstances, since the situation at any one point in time is a given and therefore cannot be manipulated. A
simplified version of our expression is therefore
A → X + Y
leaving the circumstances within which action A is taken implicit.
Clearly there are exactly three elements which can be manipulated: the action A, the goal X, and the side effects
Y. Postulate an actor whose goal X can be attained via action A, but who strongly dislikes the side effects of taking
action A. What are her options?
Basic Political Concepts 6 A Global Text
The first possibility is to seek a different action, A1, which will also produce goal X but with different side effects
Y1:
A1 → X + Y1
Perhaps the new side effects are less unsatisfactory to the actor. The cost-benefit ratio Y1/X of action A1 may be
acceptable where that of the original proposal A was not.
For example, US President, Andrew Jackson, discovered that John McLean, his inherited Postmaster General,
did not approve of the spoils system. Yet the US Post Office was a principal location of patronage jobs in those days.
One solution would be to fire McLean, but the political side effects would have been considerable. So Jackson
instead appointed McLean to the Supreme Court!
The second possibility is to modify goal X to X1. The somewhat different goal may be achievable by actions which
would not deliver the original goal, and at an acceptable price:
A2 → X1 + Y2
Compromise of course is a pervasive political phenomenon in its own right, and examples are not hard to find.
Take Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, say, who wanted to get rid of slavery but could not figure out how to do so without
committing political suicide since slave holders were a social bulwark of the monarchy. Instead of forthrightly
abolishing slavery, he therefore took steps to destroy it bit by bit, buying up and freeing some slaves, banning future
importation, and making children born to slaves free at birth. (But in 1889 Pedro II went to Europe for medical
treatment. His daughter, Princess Isabel, a militant abolitionist, took advantage of her regency to seek the
unmodified goal: freedom now! Sure enough, the monarchy was immediately overthrown.)
Another apparent possibility is to take the original action A, without unacceptable side effects Y, and also take
some other action A3, one of the results of which is to cancel out the disliked parts of side effects Y:
A → X + Y
A3 → -Y + Y3
-----------------------------------
A + A3 → X + Y3
For example, buy a desired Cadillac even though it wipes out your bank account, but then put your spouse to
work to build it back up. But the combination of actions A and A3 can be regarded as two components of a single,
compound action. Rather than a third possibility, therefore, this is just another example of the first (e.g. find an
action which produces the same goal but different side effects).
Still another possible manipulation allowed by expression A → X + Y is not just to modify the goal X but to
abandon it completely. In a way this too is just a variation on a previously noted possibility: the ultimate possible
modification of the goal, X0.
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The third basic option is to stick to the original project: A → X + Y. If no alternative actions A1 can be found
which will produce goal X with more acceptable side effects, and if goal X cannot be usefully modified, it does not
necessarily follow that goal X must be abandoned. If the actor prefers X + Y to (not X) + (not Y) then she can hold
her nose, make her "bargain with the devil", and take action A. Regret that such a price as Y must be paid to achieve
X does not necessarily imply unwillingness to do so if necessary. (As King Henry IV put it: "Paris is worth a mass.")
One final possible manipulation of the basic expression requires explicit consideration of the circumstances C
within which action A takes place (remember to visualize the implicit capital C around the letter A here):
A → X + Y
Achievement of goal X always lies in the future, compared to the time of action A, though it need not be very far
into that future. Although action must always take place within present circumstances, one possible goal that one
can pursue via present actions is to secure improvements in future circumstances. C1 is a possible X:
A → C1 + Y
Circumstances are important for two reasons. First, they make some conceivable actions possible and others
impossible. Second, they affect the specific consequences which those actions which are possible will produce.
Action in the present aimed at improving the future circumstances within which one will be acting is therefore an
investment in the profoundest and most general sense of the term.
Perhaps US President Taft was investing when he promoted an aging, conservative southern Democrat, Edward
Douglass White, to be Chief Justice in 1910, rather than appointing a younger person with views closer to his own.
Taft ultimately wanted the job for himself, and this appointment created the possibility of an early future vacancy.
If this was Taft's game, his investment paid off brilliantly!
Present actions can also change the future circumstances within which other people act, making some actions
possible and others impossible for them. Indeed, as we will see in Chapter 2 of this book, a concept of social
causation which is fully compatible with free will lies precisely in this: such causation consists of causing
possibilities and impossibilities for others, within which they can freely choose, rather than causing their actions.
Rational action in specific contexts
Our basic expression for the elements of action and decision is not merely manipulatable. It can also serve as a
model or pattern for a series of transformations, each pertaining to a different major type of action. In the context
of the transformations, the original expression also acquires a special meaning which is distinguishable from its
role as a general model.
The six variations of the expression (again taking the circumstances of action as implicit) are (shown in Table 2):
Table 2: Six variations of the expression
A → X + Y An ad hoc or "retail" decision
R → X + Y The act of making a rule, or a "wholesale" decision
O → X + Y The act of organizing, or a "super wholesale" decision
Basic Political Concepts 8 A Global Text
S → X + Y The "act" of speaking
D → X + Y The act of defining a word
T → X + Y The act of translating
Each of these six variations can be manipulated in exactly the same ways as the basic expressions, but we need
not go into this here.
Since the examples given above, in discussing the basic expression, were all drawn from the realm of ad hoc or
retail decision-making, no specific discussion of A → X + Y as one of the six variations of the general model is
needed here.
The act of creating a rule: principled decisions
Variation two, R → X + Y, refers to a "wholesale" decision, the act of making a rule. Rule-making is wholesale in
the sense that one is not merely deciding how to act in a particular case, but rather in a whole set of possible cases.
(The distinction between the logic of A → X + Y and R → X + Y is analogous to that made by some philosophers
between "act utilitarianism" and "rule utilitarianism".)
When there is a rule R that has thus been arrived at, by evaluating the benefits and side effects that observing it
is expected to produce, action A in a specific case is not determined by considering goals and side effects as it is in
the case of ad hoc action. Instead, the specific action is deduced from, or at least limited by, the rule. (Note that the
broken arrow in the following expressions stands for logical implication rather than the causation indicated by the
"solid" arrow.)
R - - > A ... Under circumstances C rule R implies or requires us to take action A.
(Or)
R - - > C ... Rule R requires that we act within certain limits, as if there were artificial circumstances C in
addition to any natural limits to our action.
As an example of the situation depicted by R - - > A consider the double jeopardy clause in the Fifth
Amendment. As interpreted by the courts, it is an absolute bar to retrying a person who has been tried and
acquitted of a given charge. If, under such circumstances, the federal government attempts to retry the person on
the same charge, the judge would be obliged by this rule to dismiss the indictment.
An example of the meaning of R - - > C can be found in a judge who is fixing a sentence governed by rule R. His
decision is not deduced from the rule, but is chosen on one ground or another from among the set of actions
compatible with the rule. The legal punishment for a certain crime may be expressed as a set of upper limits, "not
more than USD 10,000 fine and 5 years in jail", to what a judge can do to the convicted person. Sometimes the rule
will also provide a floor as well as a ceiling to the judge's alternatives.
The differences between the action A which results from an ad hoc decision, A → X + Y, and from a rule,
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R - - > A, etc., are by no means minimal. For example, when a hijacking or kidnapping has occurred, the best action
in the specific case may seem to be to capitulate to the terrorists' demands. Otherwise, lives may be lost. However
the best rule for dealing with hijackers may be to refuse to deal, because dealing encourages more of the same bad
type of actions, increasing insecurity and risk to life in general. Rule-making forces us to consider the broader
picture and ramifications of our individual actions.
One further characteristic of arriving a specified actions via rules rather than from direct evaluation of their
expected consequences is that the roles of rule-maker and rule-applier can be separated. The separation between
the legislative and judicial powers in the US Constitution reflects a decision that in government this separation of
roles ought to be the case.
The act of organizing: constitutive decisions
Variation three, O → X + Y, refers to the act of organizing things in a certain way.
By organizing in particular ways, we create important parts of the circumstances within which future actions of
all types take place. We thereby influence these future decisions. The act of organizing is thus a super wholesale
approach to decision and action.
Organizations can be seen as collections of offices or roles, and roles in turn can be seen as sets of rules
regarding proper and improper actions by the occupants of these roles. In this sense, also, the act of organizing can
be regarded as a wholesale or indirect approach to rule-making and, thus, a super wholesale or doubly indirect
approach to deciding how to act in specific cases.
The American Constitutional Convention of 1787 was one of history's most dramatic examples of acting to
organize. It is thought to have greatly influenced on the subsequent course of events in America. Likewise, the
decisions by Lenin and his associates regarding the pre-revolutionary organization of the Communist Party
continued to have important consequences as the Soviet Union approached the end of the twentieth century, more
than 70 years later. Actually, decisions about how to organize (and reorganize) are constantly going on at all levels
of society, and in all kinds of contexts. While most such decisions are not as dramatic as the above examples, taken
as a whole they are a very important part of the decisions and actions going on in the world.
The "act" of speaking: lies as political language
The fourth variation, S → X + Y, refers to the very special "action" of speaking or communicating with fellow
human beings. Communications are such a special type of action, if indeed they are "action" in the proper sense of
the term, that they require their own version of the general expression.
The implications of analyzing the act of saying a particular thing in terms of goals and side effects are troubling.
If we decide what to say by projecting the costs and benefits of alternative communications S, truth and candor can
easily get lost in the shuffle in the interest of expediency. Indeed, it is possible to argue that we should act in this
regard according to a rule that we should not decide in this way how to speak!
Ethical considerations being placed aside, however, there is no doubt that a great deal (hopefully not all!) of
human communications can be well understood in terms of the expression S → X + Y and its possible
manipulations. This is not least so in the realm of politics. Phenomena such as demagoguery, sycophancy,
Basic Political Concepts 10 A Global Text
campaign oratory, and propaganda clearly lend themselves to analysis in these terms, so does censorship, jamming,
and other methods of preventing communications.
The special importance of the act of com
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