Thinking Politically/h

Jean Blondel

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367273941
• eBook ISBN: 9781000612356
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book gives some insight into the profession of political science and about 'thinking politically'. It shows how thinking politically contributes, in a significant fashion, to answering those questions that, from curiosity or necessity, mankind has incessantly raised and wished to solve.

Chapter 1
Introduction

This book is about ‘thinking politically’. It might be objected that ‘politics’ is commonly understood to be a somewhat shabby activity. How often has one heard people say ‘these men are simply playing politics’, when they refer to individuals who ‘ought’ to be idealistic instead of being concerned with their own careers, the dislodgement of others from positions, or some advantages for a little clique? For those who view politics in this way, ‘thinking politically’ can only be at best an attempt to discover rules about an activity which only exists because of the imperfections of men, and especially of rulers.

Politics does sometimes have a bad name. Yet even those who label politics as ‘dirty’ are often inconsistent in their attitudes. Few uniformly describe as ‘dirty’ all the political activities that they witness around them. ‘Politicians’ are normally denigrated, but ‘statesmen’ are viewed with respect. Those who would generalize about the character of politicians from corruption in some large cities admire a Roosevelt, a Churchill, a Gandhi, a Lenin or a Mao tse Tung. Few of those who wholly ‘detest’ politics are likely to read this book, but some might at least glance at its first page: so I ask you, would you definitely swear that politics is totally unredeemed? Have you never uttered a word of praise or felt any admiration for a politician? Do you believe that political activity can never achieve any worthwhile objective? Perhaps these attacks against politicians result from limited observations, not from a general appraisal.

But another group of critics – possibly more sophisticated and knowledgeable – argue that political activity does not lead to thinking, in the strong sense of the word, since politics cannot really be analysed systematically. Politics covers the behaviour of millions of people in countless situations; chess is difficult enough, yet it relates to a limited number of figures which can only execute the moves that they are asked to do. In politics, men are driven, led or followed in such different types of conditions that the idea of ‘thinking’ about them, in a constructive, coherent and scientific manner seems to many to be impossible. Politicians seem to have a ‘flair’ for what will succeed. They often make mistakes, but they have their ear to the ground: they sense the problems sufficiently accurately to be able, sometimes, to correct their errors and succeed after all. ‘Thinking politically’ seems to relate to something more conscious and more systematic. Can it really be done?

I. Why ‘thinking politically’ may seem impossible

While moral objections to the whole of politics can be fairly easily dismissed, objections to the idea of politics as the subject of coherent studies need to be considered carefully. Indeed, periodically, doubts have been expressed – among intellectuals as well as among laymen – about the very possibility of political science. Admittedly, the subject has attracted thinkers, including many of the best thinkers that the world, at least the Western World, has known in the last 2,500 years. From Plato and Aristotle to the twentieth century, nearly every generation has produced writers who have tried their luck at studying politics, at giving advice to politicians, at proposing blueprints for a better society. In the last seventy years, and in particular since the Second World War, the academic discipline of politics has become established as a major subject of teaching and research, in universities, colleges and many other centres. This has happened in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe and parts of the Third World; in the United States the profession of political science has even achieved real recognition. Though the discipline does not absorb resources on the scale of the natural sciences, and though it may not attract as much attention as economics and sociology in administrative and journalistic circles, it has gained in strength and grown in stature and the time may soon come when its acceptance will be universal or near-universal: economics, after all, was barely recognized by governments before Keynes; it was rarely taken seriously before the First World War.

Yet, even though the subject has grown, even though it might be argued that slowly, but inexorably, the techniques of the discipline are becoming more rigorous, critics can still point to difficulties within the subject itself, and to strong differences of opinion between the professionals. Recent developments have not prevented many outsiders from levelling the same criticism as in the past: is there a coherent body of thought in the discipline of political science?

The model of economics might appear to show the direction in which political science should go, but for inherent irreconcilable differences between the two subjects. Economics has a well-defined object and clearly measurable instruments. It studies exchanges of goods and services; these can normally be priced, or at least they can be compared by using quantifiable units. On the other hand, economists can postulate that all things have a price and thus bring all the objects of their inquiry within the same framework; but the economists’ postulate is open to attack: the ‘value’ of goods and services should not perhaps be measured by their current price. Similarly, the Euclidean postulate in mathematics, which states that only one line can be drawn through a point such that it is parallel to another line, could be set aside, and has indeed been set aside, despite its practical consequences in geometry, architecture and engineering: those who wanted to set up a new geometry have preferred to adopt other postulates.

In fact postulates are never either true or false; whether in mathematics, physics or economics, postulates are only a useful basis on which to build theories which help to understand our environment. Sometimes other postulates will seem more useful. The economists’ postulate – that goods and services have a value which can be measured by price – is not really true; but it does help in understanding many transactions in modern societies, where money is a very common yardstick for goods and services.

Explanatory theories are built on these postulates: they are thus extremely important for the development of science. This is precisely where, unlike economics, political science seems to be deficient. Though it may be able to describe political events, it does not seem able to provide a straightforward and simple base – a postulate – on which to peg a long chain of reasoning. Postulates such as the Euclidean postulate or the price postulate have given to geometry and economics their unity: goals are clear; the problems are circumscribed; the methodology can be discovered. On the contrary, the study of politics seems more amorphous, more eclectic in its aims, more slippery in its techniques of investigation.

To highlight the contrast, let us draw another example from economics: there are huge differences between family economics and national income budgeting: dollars, pounds, francs or yens mean really different things in different situations. There is even a sense in which these units have no concrete meaning; they are mere cpncepts in many calculations. An individual’s capital may, in most circumstances, be easily realized, that is, turned into any amount of goods and services which this capital will buy; the same cannot be said of the huge assets of a State, or even a large company. But the same modes of thinking can be used for the individual, the company or the State. Exchanges of goods or services will or will not take place; the instrument of exchange will be the same form of currency, which is measurable. Granted that a nation cannot, and in effect does not, realize its assets, the exchanges which this nation’s government concludes can still be analysed adequately by reference to a process which is not basically different from that which is applied to small firms or individuals. A general analysis can therefore proceed.

The same cannot be said for politics, where we are confronted with events, institutions and standpoints which cannot easily be compared against a single yardstick. Suppose you wanted to know what was necessary to understand activities in the American Senate. You would have to study various institutions, such as the party system, executive-legislative relations, grass-roots organizations. You would need to inquire into ideologies and myths in the American Republic. You would have to examine the careers and ambitions of politicians. Yet once that study was done, it would be of relatively little use if you then wished to inquire into the British House of Lords, the Japanese House of Councillors or the Ethiopian Senate. You would need to acquire for the United Kingdom, Japan or Ethiopia a knowledge similar to that which you acquired for the United States. Yet there is some connection between the American Senate and these other bodies; they are all second chambers and should have common features; indeed they are likely to have more common features than any two randomly selected political institutions, such as the American Democratic Party and the Soviet High Command. Second chambers are difficult to compare because the yardstick by which to compare them is far from apparent. If they were economic institutions, they could be compared by their turnover, their profitability, their rate of growth. If they were triangles or other geometric figures, they would be compared by the size of their angles or the length of their sides. These comparisons would lead to precise measurements; they would also relate those objects to all neighbouring objects studied in the discipline. In political studies, this just cannot be done. We seem confronted with a maze of unconnected events, institutions and ideas. We have central and local governments; we may, or may not, have political parties and elections: these elections may, or may not, be free; there may, or may not, be a free press and other communication media; the country may be liberal or socialist, oligarchical or democratic; it may be an open society or a dictatorship. How can all these be related through a single yardstick?

The study of politics covers a wider and more diffuse area of man’s life than economics. This is why many – both specialists in the field and outsiders – have said that imagination and intuition play a large part in political analysis and always will do so alongside logic and ‘science’. This is why the study of political matters has seemingly to be guided by events, by a close knowledge of history and of the special conditions of individual societies, by a careful examination of groups as well as a precise understanding of the motivation of ‘great men’, by an appreciation of the aspirations and ideals, as well as the selfishness, of mankind. The field is so diverse that some feel that no approach is specifically political. One has to borrow tools and techniques from many disciplines: some students of politics may be nearer to students of other disciplines than to other students of politics. When examining the politics of a tribal society, be an anthropologist! When examining small groups in committees, be a social psychologist! When assessing the role of a king or of a president, be a psychologist and an historian! When comparing the costs of engaging in international negotiations which might lead to war with the welfare of minorities, be an economist! If this is how one must exhort a student of politics, what can it mean precisely to ‘think politically?

II. What thinking politically could mean, in an eclectic discipline

Though there may be less unity in the study of politics than in economics, physics or other sciences, is there no unity at all? There may not be a postulate enabling political scientists to link closely all the events that they wish to study. But even if the types of inquiries are very diverse, there is a discipline; political scientists do, in a broad fashion, recognize each other. Even if they oppose each other, they use a language which has common features. Economics may be tightly knit; the economists’ price postulate may be easily recognizable by all, insiders and outsiders alike. But is such a tightly organized structure an absolute necessity for any discipline? Suppose that thinking politically had some of the characteristics of tightrope walking, with the constant danger that one might fall on one side or the other: thinking politically would be more like a juggling act, but the study would still be characterized by a profound unity.

Let us explore this point further. Underneath the objective and practical unity which a common yardstick may give to a discipline, unity can also come from a less precise common thinking, from a sensitivity or alertness to problems: this helps gradually to relate events, situations and descriptions to a subject-matter. But here we seem caught in a vicious circle, as this subject-matter may in fact only be defined out of the questions that come to be studied. Since there is no unity arising from an obvious yardstick, the questions will be the loosely related problems which appear to be interesting to curious observers. Only accidentally will these problems become connected, if they are connected at all.

This is true, but the predicament is perhaps not confined to political science. The natural sciences appear now to have a unified body of knowledge through the complex theory which they have come to build; so has economics, at least to a degree. But this is only the end-product of a long development: geometry began from the desire to make measurements of the earth; physics was long associated with the solution of various discrete questions of gravitation, light and electricity. Similarly, in its early stages, politics was concerned for instance with formulating the best constitution, without giving much consideration to an underlying general theme linking all the questions of political life. Nor is it surprising that those who are interested in politics come to the discipline because they are curious about abstentions in local elections, participation among the citizenship, the development of military rule in many parts of the world, party discipline in legislative assemblies, the role of a president in the passing of a bill, career patterns of leaders, or the real meaning of concepts such as liberty, democracy and justice.

These questions are separate and discrete. They seem to confirm the view that politics is extremely eclectic, that it covers problems of broad extent. Yet, in the midst of these many problems, the question of unity recurs because, though many questions are studied, not all human problems come under the searching eye of students of politics. A second phase has therefore to come, in the study of politics as in other disciplines. Problems need to be related by the determination of an abstract subject-matter linking the many aspects which come to be studied. Students of politics never look at more than some of the facts which come to their attention; they select, but they can only do so because they are guided by a ‘selecting’ mechanism. If one is interested in legislators as political actors, for instance, one is not (at least not usually) interested in their dress, their blood pressure, or their looks: one wishes to analyse their political characteristics. These have to be defined, at least in some fashion; the political element in the attitudes and behaviour of legislators has to be extracted. But, then, one is demonstrating – if only unconsciously – a concern for a particular type of problem, a recognition of the kind of questions that are political. One may not precisely define these problems; one may not be able to find a ‘unifying postulate’. But there has to be some unity; there has ultimately to be some concept, idea, or at least theme, which will be recurring in all the studies. The ‘theme’ may be much looser than equivalent themes in economics. It may be as vague as a description of sets of cases as is the phrase which defines politics as being the ‘study of men related to authority’.¹ Some types of problems, and only some, come nonetheless to be studied.

We can therefore say with assurance that thinking politically at least consists in looking at some events, questions or situations in ways which are related by a concern for a more abstract subject-matter, which we will need to define further: this might be authority, or it might be another concept. But, because one has to distinguish what is political from what is not, this process of selection necessarily provides some unity to the field of study. Of course, there will be room for disagreement about the importance of the questions chosen; of course, there will be different approaches. Some may say that it is more useful to study the relationship between big business and government than to examine the motivations of electors, on the grounds that more of politics is explained by questions of power at the top than by voting results. Others may not agree. But they will agree about some configuration for the subject-matter. Students of politics will extract ‘political deposits’ out of reality, though they may somewhat differ about the richness of the finds.

The existence of a discipline implies abstracting certain elements; it also implies a methodology. By methodology, one does not mean a technique, but an analytical process of defining problems, setting their limits, and finding some means of relating these problems to others already solved. Methods can range from intellectual tools, such as the use of logic, to more concrete procedures, such as practical experiments. A common methodology consists in choosing the documents which need to be studied, in abstracting the facts which need to be examined, as well as in selecting the tools which will be most effective in the analysis of either documents or facts. Method even means a feel for what is practical within the limitations of both time and money.

Methodology is linked to and derives from subject-matter. The methodology may not be simple, easy to handle, or even always successful: problems are often hard to seize, at times even insoluble. But this is not uncommon in other sciences. Political scientists are able to assess what is insoluble or at least difficult, given the various techniques which are at their disposal. This is perhaps the main point of a methodology. Students of politics sense that they can only describe inadequately, rather than define, certain complex problems; they may know that they can only find unsatisfactory substitutes (indicators of a concept rather than the concept itself) or make certain assumptions which are highly, or at best somewhat, unrealistic. Think of concepts such as justice, power or democracy: can definitions of them be easily given, or – even more – applied to a large number of concrete situations? Political activity is extremely varied; the subject-matter extremely diffuse and eclectic; it should not be surprising that the ‘methodological baggage’ of political scientists has to include scepticism and critical analyses as well as ‘forward leaps’, suspicions and doubts about broad concepts as well as longings for, and even occasionally naïve collapses into, over-hasty generalizations.

The intractable nature of the subject therefore leads naturally to conflicting approaches. Battles between the various schools of thought – between quantifiers and describers, between empiricists and systematizers of the most abstract character – may seem to outsiders (and sometimes to insiders) an indication of the lack of coherence of the discipline; they may even give the impression that the problems will never be satisfactorily solved.² But this does not mean that there is no unity behind the differences, no methodology behind these many approaches (part of the methodology being precisely an awareness that the subject-matter has to be considered in an eclectic way). Political problems, due to their diffuseness and amorphousnes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• PREFACE
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• PART I THE GENERAL ASPECTS OF POLITICAL THINKING
• 2 THE MANY APPROACHES TO POLITICS
• 3 THE COMMON CONCERN OF THOSE WHO THINK POLITICALLY
• 4 THE METHODOLOGY OF POLITICAL THINKING
• PART II THE THREE BRANCHES OF POLITICAL THINKING
• 5 NORMATIVE THEORY
• 6 BEHAVIOURAL THEORY
• 7 STRUCTURAL THEORY
• 8 THINKING POLITICALLY
• SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY