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.
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What does Jared Diamond's theory say? [closed]
I am asking about Jared Diamond's (smallpox) theory. What does the theory really say? Does it mention whether specific genes were involved or if it is a theory of racial superiority?
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According to the "neo-realists", if the world is like a game of Risk, why isn't everyone uniting against the United States hegemony?
If I got the grand theme of "neo-realism" right (I and I might have not), every somewhat big country has just one primary concern: that some other country is going to become the hegemon. (...
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How do "neo-realists" support their view that the US can simultaneously exit NATO and convince the EU to cut their economic ties with China?
"Neo-realists" (like John Mearsheimer) argue that the US should simultaneously exit NATO (because the US should focus on the Chinese threat in Asia) and convince the EU to cut all economic ...
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What evidence is there that John J. Mearsheimer influenced, rather than studied, Putin? [closed]
Mearsheimer
John J. Mearsheimer is probably the best known scholar of the self-ascribed "realists" -- political philosophers purporting to view the world through the lens of military balance ...
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Why didn't the totalitarian parties in the 20th century use the "big tent" strategy?
I see that ‘big tent’ or ‘catch-all’ parties are quite popular in modern politics. However, the autocrats of the past took the opposite view:
Before we can unite, and in order that we may unite, we ...
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Is there any academic research into the concept of "government does not control the government"?
In his blog post, Dominic Cummings (former advisor to Boris Johnson) writes the following:
In Washington as in London, the golden rule of Government is — the government does not control the ...
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What theory of organizational design incentivizes participants to improve performance?
Is there any theory of designing government departments so they are automatically incentivized to maximize ratings in certain metrics, including satisfaction by people receiving those services (like ...
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Is true democracy impossible? - a theorem
Consider the following reasoning:
Humans have different values and ideologies.
In a democracy, there is always a group that is willing to violently impose their values and ideology over others, ...
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Can political science gauge quantitatively the strength of US global leadership?
From my perspective, the headline coverage of the direction of the US on the global stage is mostly pessimistic. But I want to see if that is actually justified. I concede it's not an easy undertaking,...
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What positive tests exists for determining what countries are considered democratic?
Many nations call themselves democratic (e.g. the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, aka North Korea), but most scholars would refute the idea that they are democratic.
In other cases, nations ...
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What academic journals in political science have the highest impact factor? [closed]
I am in school for engineering and work as a programmer but I'm almost always reading about politics/philosophy/economics/sociology outside school.
However the sources I get my information from the ...
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Canadian conservatives on climate change: other examples of a mainstream political party deliberately moving itself out of the Overton Window?
(The Overton window can be thought of as "what's politically sellable to the public")
Canadian Conservative leader O'Toole has been jettisoned by his peers, 73 out 119.
Canada's ...
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What are some examples of Ur-Fascist Newspeak?
I'm a big proponent of Umberto Eco's definition of Fascism that he gives in his essay Ur-Fascism; I find it really helps break down the very nebulous and poorly defined - but unmistakeable - concept ...
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Is there any formal mathematical analysis of democratic peace theory? [closed]
The democratic peace theory postulates that democracies are less likely to go to war, or at least less likely to go to war with other democracies. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
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How do the liberal side of international relations theorists model people’s well-being?
I’m only referring to the liberal side of international relations theory, not the realist side.
In their formal theories (to the extent that they write mathematically formal theories), how do they ...
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Is Immanuel Wallerstein's theory on capitalism and cognitive dissonance empirically verifiable?
In the past I have heard people assert that racism is caused by capitalism, and this has never really made sense to me.
However, this answer references a theory by Immanuel Wallerstein that explains ...
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Will Russia need to delay an invasion of Ukraine until things settle down in Kazakhstan? [closed]
I am wondering if it is likely that Russia will delay an invasion of Ukraine until the political unrest and violence in Kazakhstan comes to end.
The way I see it is that Russia may need to send in a ...
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Are there election systems where voters cast a vote on the final composition of the legislature, rather than individual parties or candidates?
As an example, Germany is well known for having the problem of forming a coalition due to a large number of parties being elected to their legislative body. I imagine this can be frustrating to some ...
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Are there voting system models that attempt to incorporate ‘realistic’ tactical voting?
The usual voting system modeling (see example) includes the concept of honest and tactical voters. The first type of voter always chooses their preferred candidate(s) while the second type always ...
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Who wrote that the role of a government is to protect from foreign threats, promote trade, and provide for those that cannot provide for themselves?
Who wrote that the role of a government is to protect from foreign threats, promote trade, and provide for those that cannot provide for themselves (physically or cognitively impaired)?
The ...
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According to Marx, is Communism a workable system or an unreachable ideal?
I have heard opposing arguments about whether or not Communism was intended to be an unreachable ideal, or a workable system. Has Marx ever commented, either in the communist manifesto or otherwise, ...
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What is the political (moral) justification for terminating the employment of workers for moral reasons completely unrelated to their job? [closed]
In my country there was a recent moral panic, where it was discovered that a popular TV host had uploaded videos with private moments of his (now ex) girlfriend online.
After this event was made ...
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Is conscription incompatible with democracy? [closed]
Is mandatory military service incompatible with democracy, in which people supposedly are given choices?
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Have any capitalist libertarians asked if the free market destroys itself (due to the efficiency of organised crime)?
I am aware of, though not read in, the most influential capitalist libertarian thinkers (Hayek, Friedman, Nozick, Rand, etc). As far as I understand it, their general point is that an unrestricted ...
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Confused about the terms 'state' and 'government'
Google says:
Government: "the governing body of a nation, state, or community."
State: "a nation or territory considered as an organized political community under one government."
...
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Are modern state governments just a group that administers the businesses of the bourgeoisie? [closed]
I recently read the Communist Manifiesto and in the very fist chapter the authors claim that
The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole ...
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How can the Harm Principle be adjusted to fit Social Democracy and Social Liberalism
Beyond Libertarianism: Interpretations of Mill's Harm Principle and the Economic Implications Therein
The harm principle does not stipulate strict rights of the individual, applied uniformly.
To ...
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What is the meaning of "actors" and "player" according to political terms?
I am reading a book where I find some sentences like
... how international actors impact civil wars
... being a 'player' in regional politics
... further study of each of the six actors' policies ...
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Which works of Hegel and Bismarck is Paul Ryan referring to?
In this video, Paul Ryan says that early progressives believe that "...we're all rubes and doobs(?) and we don't know enough so we have to delegate our power to these smart people..."
Can ...
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What do people mean by "political alienation" when they cite it as the cause of extremist ideologies?
I hear the term "alienation" a lot when people theorize what is driving some towards extremist ideologies. But I'm not sure what the term actually means.
Notably, people often describe young ...
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Are there well-known Islamic theoretical works about deception in politics (or at least in war)?
After reading this bit of commentary about the recent Taliban "charm offensive":
That's the thing with the Taliban - they're deceptive, they're charming, they know how to use the right ...
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Merging and splitting in apportionment
This question is about rules for apportionment of parliament seats among parties. Many such rules have the property, that a party may gain a seat by splitting into two parties, or two parties may gain ...
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Can we call the United States of America an asymmetric federation?
The United States also observes tribal sovereignty of the American Indian nations to a limited degree, as it does with the states' sovereignty. American Indians are U.S. citizens and tribal lands are ...
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Is democracy inherently anti-authoritarian?
I read a question asking if communism was inherently authoritarian as it is often portrayed. President Nixon often talked about countries being either communist or free. Is democracy always the ...
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What is the use of governmental sovereign immunity within a state?
This is seen internationally, but I will stick with an example from the US.
In the US, the federal, state, and (some) local governments enjoy sovereign immunity giving them protection from all law ...
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Why aren't any countries trying to create a neo-democracy/ alternate system of government? [closed]
I have been stewing over a question for the past few days: Why haven't people come up with a new form of governance that is much better than democracy and eliminates the current intrinsic faults with ...
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Is it likely that the Founding Fathers would not have created the 2nd Amendment if automatic rifles had been available in 1775? [closed]
I am wondering if it is likely that our nation's founding fathers would not have created the 2nd Amendment if automatic rifles had already been invented by 1775 and that they were being used in mass ...
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What keeps a democracy from disestablishing itself?
Assume a democracy where every person can vote. Now, if there was a party to say: "If we win, next time only all men are allowed to vote plus all women with dark hair." Let's assume that ...
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What conditions must happen to end a cult of personality?
Background
Cults of Personality are a long standing phenomenon going back to at least the Roman Emperor Commodus. However the term really only entered popular lexicon after Nikita Khrushchev's Secret ...
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Are there sources that try to demonstrate that democracy is just an oligarchy?
My concern is certainly both philosophical and political ...I'm looking for interesting writings ( book, article, essay, etc .. ) about a theory on similarities between known forms of democracy and ...
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Is an "enlightened public" political system a form of democracy, or of technocracy/epistocracy?
I am not sure who originally came up with this idea, but in his book Against Democracy, Jason Brennan talks about a political system he calls "simulated oracle", or an "enlightened ...
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Is there any formal research into the concept of "nothing more permanent than a temporary government program"?
According to a quote attributed to Milton Friedman, "there's nothing more permanent than a temporary government program". Is there any formal academic research into this concept, i.e. ...
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Are there modern theories of free speech that account for the inequality of the marketplace of ideas?
Recent critiques of the "marketplace of ideas" theory of free speech have noted inherent shortcomings with this system, namely:
People do not have equal ability to spread their ideas in the ...
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Are the differences between capitalism's and socialism's analysis of resource distribution fairness fundamental?
I have always understood a (broadly speaking) capitalist, free market approach to economics to rest on the notion that a resource distribution is fair in light of how closely it correlates the ...
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Understanding how Fascism showed that direct government is not same as self-government
Harold Joseph Laski in his book Parliamentary Government in England writes:
Direct government, in short, is not the same thing as self-government; it may, indeed, as the experience of Fascist ...
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Is Duverger's Law a theorem or an empirical regularity?
I wanted to know if Duverger's law ("[T]he simple-majority single-ballot system favours the two-party system") was/can be derived from a mathematical model of elections, like the Median ...
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Has authoritarianism been removed as an attribute of the right?
Historically, authoritarianism was an attribute of the right; during the French parliament in the momentous 1789 vote in which a decision was made regarding the veto power against the king post ...
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What did Black Panther, Huey Newton, mean by 'Non-State' in this speech?
In a speech to Boston College, on the 18th November, 1970, Huey Newton, one of the founders of the Black Panther Party in 1966, said:
... But by and large you can see the transformation which was ...
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What is the distinction between constitutional power and statutory power?
I know it sounds easy on the surface. Constitutional powers are conferred through constitutional text, whereas statutory powers are conferred through legislation.
But consider the following scenario (...
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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.
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