Questions tagged [political-theory]
Political theory is the study of the concepts in politics. Use this tag for questions regarding political philosophy or scientific theories.
303
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6answers
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If the goal of communism is a stateless society, then why do we refer to authoritarian governments such as China as communist?
The actions taken by these governments seem to be more fascist than communist. The term communism is used to describe so many contradicting policies and it is very confusing.
36
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2answers
7k views
What is an alternative theory to the Paradox of Tolerance?
The Paradox of Tolerance expresses the idea that a society that is unlimited in its tolerance of intolerant philosophies is unlikely to survive, and therefore that an otherwise tolerant society should ...
29
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8answers
5k views
Is it a fundamental tenet of liberalism to allow the expression of illiberal ideals?
In recent years, the US has seen a rise in a priori rejection or "cancelling" of illiberal ideas on the left. In essence, these ideas are being rejected from mainstream liberal society ...
10
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4answers
578 views
What differentiates Trotskyism from Marxism/Leninism?
I understand that the split originated in a power struggle, but I'm more interested in the modern theoretical differences.
In the present day, there appears to be an ideological split between ...
2
votes
2answers
286 views
According to political scientists, what, if anything, are the benefits of election polling to a liberal democracy?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy
About 3 months and a million news-years ago, the pollsters and election analysts were taking a kicking for not predicting the US elections accurately ...
5
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2answers
260 views
Are there groups or parties considered far-right but not populist?
Some authors reject that populism is even a terribly meaningful concept, but leaving aside that general rejection, for those who admit that populism is "a thing" and likewise admit that the ...
2
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2answers
277 views
Do we have a political term for the situation when a weak country milks from two stronger countries which are enemies of each other?
Do we have a political term for the situation when a weak country milks from two country which are enemies of each other?
My research includes, studying about debt-trap, and other questions here. So I ...
1
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0answers
205 views
Writings advising elected politicians on how to make hard choices
While not always seen in this light, members of congressional or parliamentary bodies are regularly faced with moral choices when deciding how to vote in situations where the answers to questions like ...
11
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2answers
481 views
How did the US end up so evenly split?
When looking at the popular vote for 2016, about 49% to 51%, and the current numbers for 2020, it's astonishing how close it is — how evenly the country is divided.
Surely this is unexpected and ...
4
votes
3answers
233 views
Is it advantageous to lie in political polling answers?
When a person is asked questions by a poll, are there any rational reasons why they might lie with their answers in order to achieve their goals for the election?
For example if they say they are ...
5
votes
2answers
324 views
“You can't call a country a democracy until a government has twice lost an election and given up power.” Whose quote or idea is this?
I've completed a "Moral Foundation of Politics" course on Coursera.org and there's an interesting quote that sounds like this:
Schumpeterians will often say, you can't call a country a ...
3
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1answer
270 views
Is there a term for politicians enacting a policy where the negative consequences will be far after their political career is over?
For example, Governor Newsom has recently committed to banning internal combustion engine cars starting from the year 2035 or 15 years from now. Given that this will be long after he's out of office, ...
1
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1answer
169 views
How can wages/income be aligned with social value production?
Many people would argue that nurses provide more value to society than investment bankers*, yet the latter position is paid significantly more than the former. This fact is often lamented. My question ...
49
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5answers
8k views
Apparently many US voters think their candidate supports their politics even if they do not. Does this also apply to voters in other countries?
This surprising New York Times article says many US voters can't tell what political positions their candidate espouse, and in fact appear to simply attach their favored positions onto their candidate....
4
votes
2answers
386 views
Political philosophy: major developments in the last 20 years?
Has there been any groundbreaking academic/ scholarly research conducted in the field of political theory/philosophy in the past 20 years?
Obviously the 20th century had a lot of novel political ...
0
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0answers
23 views
What word might describe a position between progressive and reactionary [duplicate]
My understanding of both terms is that they relate to one's tolerance of the status quo, with "progressive" meaning someone who wants to progress beyond the current status quo ("change&...
3
votes
2answers
560 views
If the countervailing ideology to Progressivism is Conservatism, what is the countervailing ideology to Reactionary movements?
Background
In the United States, Progressivism has been associated with sets of (normally left leaning relative to the political spectrum of the time) political reforms whose number and societal ...
0
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1answer
127 views
Is politics the reason behind the US having so many news channels? [closed]
The US strongly adheres to the separation of state and church, however it seems that the US cannot separate news and politics. Has this bias caused or contributed to the influx of alphabet news ...
34
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12answers
5k views
Alternatives to money and power as social incentive mechanisms
Capitalism does a pretty good job of incentivizing people to work on what's economically profitable, e.g., finance, law, tech, and what gives them power over others, e.g., becoming CEOs. Now let's ...
18
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2answers
482 views
Is there a term for the practice of defunding a public asset in order to privatize it?
In a lecture entitled The State-Corporate Complex: A Threat to Freedom and Survival given by Noam Chomsky in 2011, at the University of Toronto, a 'standard technique of privatization' is described:
...
2
votes
1answer
130 views
What are efficient approaches to counter drug trafficking?
I recently heard that for a City/State it might be better to educate people and help them get away from drugs rather than fighting the drug dealers with more and more police force. Based on the ...
0
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0answers
46 views
“Materialist” versus “symbolic” politics
Apologies if the question is too vague.
By “materialist” politics, I mean political reasoning and action that is primarily focused on the goal of optimizing measurable outcomes for people, in such ...
5
votes
1answer
165 views
What is the constitutional logic for a republic to have a sovereign immunity law?
Looking at this list, it seems like most sovereign immunity laws exist in countries with monarchies, which makes sense both historically (an artifact of the principle of rex non potest peccare); and ...
5
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3answers
2k views
Why has the State been considered as a problematic institution?
I have enrolled in a course of Public Administration and there is a paper called State, society, and Public Administration. Unfortunately it is a course which a student needs to study him/herself ...
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2answers
174 views
Can we ever truly know democracy? [closed]
So I've been doing a lot of reading mainly to do with democracy, its meanings and its histories and the problem that I keep running into is the impossibility of truly knowing democracy. If we are to ...
1
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0answers
191 views
How do different parts of society depend on each other for their progress?
As an example, some part of society can progress only so much before such progress stagnates and it requires other parts of society to progress.
Prior Research
No matter how many different ways I ...
1
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2answers
101 views
What is the relationship between politicians' electability and physical fitness?
I wasn't able to find any studies which looked at the relationship between a candidate's body shape or physical fitness and their predicted election success. The closest source I could find were ...
4
votes
2answers
226 views
What are the methods by which a democratic system can suppress demagoguery and intellectualize the popular vote?
Socrates criticized democracy for its conduciveness to demagoguery and its embrace of even those votes that do not come from thoughtful and intellectual individuals. These objections are salient given ...
1
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2answers
150 views
Was “The Mandate of Heaven” a theory of directly democratic revolution?
The Mandate of Heaven philosophy states that if a ruler was overthrown by the people, it was Heaven executing its will - with respect to an ineffective ruler.
The Duke of Zhou created the idea in ...
1
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1answer
309 views
Why fight political polarization? [closed]
Political polarization is one of the key topics in politics and society today, and there seems to be a consensus on the opinion that political polarization is something bad. The ability to “reduce ...
1
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2answers
154 views
Term for shifting positions toward the center during an election
I was thinking about various politicians who, at the beginning of their campaigns (usually presidential campaigns), held opinions typically associated with "left" or "liberal" ideology, and who, over ...
1
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1answer
416 views
To what extent is Marxism a liberal ideology?
It's been asserted in another answer here that:
Marxism is, of course, part of the spectrum of Liberal ideologies, though it is often maligned as being something 'other.'
Looking at the SEP page ...
0
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1answer
150 views
Is there an elaboration on Roger Martelli's conclusion that left-populism is doomed to fail?
In reading an article about Chantal Mouffe's work, some of which advocated for left-populism, I found this bit interesting:
According to Mouffe, who is also a philosopher of art, only Jean-Luc ...
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5answers
494 views
In what ways is Marxism not (left-wing) populism?
On a certain level, Cas Mudde's definition of populism (the most accepted in academia today, it seems), namely an
ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into
two homogeneous ...
3
votes
1answer
190 views
What is the freezing hypothesis, and is it still applicable today?
I came across the term, which seems to refer to a theory initially introduced by Lipset & Rokkan in 1967. It appears to refer to a way of categorising voters into 'frozen' blocs that don't shift ...
33
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6answers
10k views
What is the difference between totalitarianism and authoritarianism?
Both ideologies seem to have a dictatorship-like system of governance, no tolerance of dissenting opinions, and an executive which holds absolute power.
What is the difference between these two ...
2
votes
2answers
212 views
Do any countries practice a system of proportional funding/budgeting that combines everyone's funding choices?
As far as I know, most countries write up budgets like they write laws: organs of government declare what they need for the next year, someone makes a proposal, and other people add to the proposal, ...
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4answers
307 views
What prevents organizations that implements mainstream center-left, social democratic policies from becoming popular?
After seeing the first answer, I realized that the question was poorly formed and edited this from socialist organizations existing to mainstream center left organizations becoming popular
In a free ...
1
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0answers
90 views
According to Selectorate Theory, which dictatorship type is best-equipped to survive? [closed]
I understand that selectorate theory can be used to distinguish between democracy and authoritarian regimes (due to difference in winning coalitions) and between the types of dictatorship (due to ...
1
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1answer
227 views
Which (subjective) measure of corruption is the best predictor for an outsider winning a major election?
There's a (somewhat vague) theory that once the electorate starts to believe the political system is corrupt, it is more likely to vote for an outsider (someone who hasn't had a long political career) ...
2
votes
1answer
277 views
Are there any proposed systems to bring more long-term planning into (democratic) government?
In much of the world, (liberal) democracy (in a broad sense) is seen as the best (or least bad) system of government, and in the 20th and 21st century, living standards have improved markedly in ...
0
votes
3answers
79 views
Have some concrete/operational definitions been proposed for the term “shadow war”?
Various commentators have said that US and Iran and/or Israel and Iran are engaged in a "shadow war". Have there been works/proposals in political science/theory literature clearly defining this "...
0
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1answer
278 views
Does any country “filter” otherwise eligible political candidates?
In Brazil, almost anyone can enter politics as long as they meet these conditions:
must have Brazilian nationality or be naturalized;
be in full exercise of political rights;
be listed in the ...
93
votes
15answers
8k views
What is the purpose of democracy?
In many modern political debates democracy is often considered an unalloyed virtue: things are good because they are democratic. Things the people have voted for are good because they represent the "...
3
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2answers
254 views
Are 'state religion' and 'official religion' the same things?
Are 'state religion' and 'official religion' the same things?
For example, Pakistan has state religion while Sri Lanka has official religion.
On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion , it ...
9
votes
2answers
3k views
Is the US a welfare state?
Is the US considered a welfare state? If so, where would it be classified using the Esping-Andersen's welfare classification?
8
votes
1answer
152 views
What is the name of a doctrine that aims to solidify state loyalty by allowing minorities to secede?
Is there a name for a doctrine that states that a nation state would be better off by allowing minorities, such as the Arabs in Israel, Kurds in Turkey, or Albanians in Macedonia, to actually secede ...
1
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2answers
171 views
How widely accepted is the semi-parliamentary classification of executive-legislative relations that was espoused in Ganghof, 2018?
In Ganghof, 2018, the author argues that Australia and Japan both have a newly classified system of government that he dubbed the 'semi-parliamentary system'. In it, the legislative branch is split ...
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0answers
85 views
What are some good online good-faith venues for more opinionated political discussion? [closed]
I've had a rather difficult time leveraging this site for Q&A as a significant portion of my interest in politics is targeted more at formation of my own political beliefs outside the actual ...
48
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19answers
21k views
Is Communism intrinsically authoritarian?
As a consequence of the recent developments in China, I’ve heard a lot of commentary which characterises authoritarianism as an inevitable consequence of a Communist state.
How true is this statement?...
