Basic Political Concepts

Paul deLespinasse, Marisa Drexel

• Publisher: Studium Publishing
• Year: 2018
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9788027223572
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

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. This book introduces the basic ideas of political science. Contents: Towards a Systematic Conceptualization of Politics Concepts of Decision-Making and Action Concepts of Human Association Developing Conceptual Acuity

1. Concepts of Decision-Making and Action

Table of Contents

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

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?

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 monarch y. Instead of forth rightly 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.

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

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, 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 ...

Table of contents

• Basic Political Concepts
• Table of Contents
• Towards a Systematic Conceptualization of Politics
• 1. Concepts of Decision-Making and Action
• 2. Concepts of Human Association
• 3. Developing Conceptual Acuity