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.
10
votes
2answers
338 views
Would the Founding Fathers have supported an inheritance tax?
I recently had someone make the claim that several of the Framers of the U.S. Constitution would have likely agreed with an estate or inheritance tax. This theory was backed up by a few quotes from ...
2
votes
4answers
186 views
In what ways economy influence slavery and end of it?
Most people think slavery is prohibited because it's "wrong".
If that's true, we would have ended slavery thousands of years ago.
It seems that industrialization makes labor more "precious". Each ...
3
votes
3answers
159 views
What’s the point of triumvirate, as political regime?
Triumvirate is a very frequent pattern of government, and almost every area or the world, in almost every age, shows examples of it.
I’m Italian, and thus I am particularly familiar with the notion, ...
4
votes
4answers
284 views
What is a “government by techology” called?
What is the technical term for a "government by technology" called? By "by technology" I mean that, for example, a computer program's decisions form the basis of governance. Is this "technocracy"?
2
votes
0answers
41 views
Are there substantial consensus results on the political causes and/or consequences of economic inequality in political science?
In economics, there are any number of books and articles that provide a broad survey of theoretical and empirical findings on economic inequality. Much of this material is technical, and most of it is,...
6
votes
6answers
326 views
Can collectivist economics co-exist with Individual rights?
I have often heard that collectivism and individual rights can't co-exist because they are opposites. On the surface this appears to be accurate, but is there any historical examples of societies ...
0
votes
1answer
208 views
The ethics on darwinism and social darwinism
Has someone written a monograph on ethics related to social darwinism and darwinism?
6
votes
5answers
1k views
Does liberal democracy require a significant amount of free-will in order to function?
In one of his articles/books, Yuval-Noah-Harari argues that liberal democracy might be obsolete if human agency is greatly reduced by technology:
Information technology is continuing to leap ...
5
votes
1answer
594 views
Is there an international consensus about Privacy vs Security (How Much Data Should We Collect?)
On the one hand, privacy gives people leeway for free thought, freedom of expression, and criticism without fear of personal consequences.
On the other hand, security ensures the structural integrity ...
1
vote
3answers
182 views
What is the relationship between government expenditure and the quality of life?
Can we say, in general, what is the relationship between relative government expenditure (or the total taxation) and the average quality of life?
3
votes
1answer
259 views
How does Donald Trump define the word conservative?
Ronald Reagan's rise to prominence was built on the conservative intellectual movement and the thinking of figures like Russel Kirk, Frederick Hayek, Frank Meyer, Irving Kristol,and William F. Buckley ...
6
votes
3answers
425 views
What is the relationship between age and political ideology?
This question asked whether the current distribution of ages within each political party is similar to the past. This leads to a more general question: what is the relationship between age and ...
4
votes
4answers
1k views
Is the conspiracy theory of “Cultural Marxism” inherently tied to antisemitism?
According to Wikipedia, cultural marxism is a conspiracy theory that says that the Frankfurt School wants to destroy western culture by controlling the media, academia, etc., using as its method the ...
5
votes
2answers
148 views
Is Hobbes' Leviathan part of classical realism?
I am wondering whether Hobbes as an author and his Leviathan specifically, are part of classical realism.
The purpose of the Leviathan is to accumulate the monopoly on force and hence, overcome the ...
42
votes
8answers
13k views
Why do politicians refuse to answer hypothetical questions?
Often you hear politicians say this "I don't answer hypothetical questions". Why can't hypothetical questions be answered? What are the grounds for politicians justify saying that? Is there a way to ...
0
votes
2answers
49 views
Suggesting a book to understand politics theory and the organization of states [closed]
I am a politics and history hobbyist but my engineering life didn't give me enough time to dive more into politics and think about more advanced concepts and improve my formal political knowledge. So, ...
2
votes
0answers
59 views
Is the extended security framework a useful model for modern security phenomena?
First, I am referring to working paper from Christopher Daase (2010).
Daase, Christopher (2010): Der erweiterte Sicherheitsbegriff. Working
Paper 1. Sicherheitskultur im Wandel
His paper ...
0
votes
7answers
502 views
Who “owns” a country? [closed]
In corporations, the stockholders "own" the corporation. If you have your own business, you pretty much do whatever you like with the business.
However, if you're a manager working for a business, ...
1
vote
1answer
469 views
What is the difference between direct and indirect democracy
which is the difference and similarities between this two types of democracy?
Is there any political structural differences or philosophical differences among them ? Which type of political system ...
29
votes
10answers
11k views
Can the U.S. technically be called an oligarchy and a democracy?
I thought theoretically the U.S. could be a democracy (because people have a say in the daily workings of the government) and an oligarchy ( the president, the Supreme Court, etc... are the only ones ...
5
votes
2answers
168 views
Difference between the Scientific and Behavioral approach to International Relations
As per my shallow research, IR literature and online content intermix Scientific and Behavioral Approach to International Relations. What exactly is the difference between the Scientific and ...
3
votes
0answers
124 views
Are there some studies which measure the level of politicization of courts in a trans-Atlantic perspective?
It's easy enough to find a Europe-only comparative perspective on the politicization of the judiciary, e.g. Werkmann (2017):
The authors measured the level of politicization in each
country ...
1
vote
3answers
130 views
Is first-past-the-post (plurality voting) neither an ordinal nor a cardinal method?
Wikipedia says:
Cardinal methods (based on cardinal utility) and ordinal methods (based on ordinal preferences, also called ranked voting) are two main categories of modern voting systems, along ...
4
votes
1answer
95 views
How is Approval Voting providing more information than an ordinal method?
Kenneth Arrow says in an interview that Approval Voting provides more information than ordinal methods subject to his theorem:
CES: So it seems like one of the points that you’re stressing within ...
42
votes
12answers
7k views
Why does partisanship trump concerns about hypocrisy with voters?
Politicians are routinely hypocritical in support of partisan ends.
I'll provide a few examples to demonstrate what I mean:
When their party's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court is facing ...
17
votes
4answers
812 views
Do any theories justify majoritarian election outcomes?
At legislative elections, parties can experience different biases in the translation of votes to seats. Grofman, Koetzle, and Brunell published a taxonomy of these biases (Malapportionment, turnout ...
14
votes
5answers
6k views
Is Venezuela an example of socialism?
I've been hearing a lot about Venezuela in the news lately. And it seems there is a big debate over whether it was socialism or not, or whether it was implemented properly.
Is it safe to assume that ...
3
votes
3answers
300 views
In Marxism are prices decided centrally?
Are prices centrally decided in Marxism?
If so are they based on labour value?
5
votes
1answer
216 views
What kind of government did Tocqueville consider the United States?
In Democracy in America does Tocqueville consider the United States a democracy, or does he have more nuanced views about the United States's form of government?
6
votes
2answers
181 views
Why didn't Orestes Brownson think that the “American form” of government is a “Mixed Government”?
In The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny (1865), Orestes Brownson claims (ch. 1 introduction):
Aristotle* knew only four forms of government: Monarchy, Aristocracy, ...
0
votes
3answers
595 views
Are there benefits to war? [closed]
There are obvious costs to war: loss of human life, destruction of property, disruption of people's lives, and much more.
However, despite these costs wars continue to happen. I'm wondering what ...
-8
votes
1answer
192 views
What are the primary tenets of the liberal international order and what distinguishes that concept from the new world order?
In an article entitled President Donald Trump and the New International Order by Edwin J. Feulner, the founder and former president of The Heritage Foundation, the author states
First, my ...
7
votes
1answer
150 views
What is the term for the polisci problem of having to vote for a single individual holding many beliefs?
What's the term for the problem where voters have to pick a single person to vote for, but they may support different candidates on different issues?
For example, maybe you like the Democrats ...
5
votes
2answers
2k views
What is the Rice Index? How does it measure party unity?
I've read that a so-called Rice index is used in political science to measure party unity. There's no Wikipedia page on this notion. How exactly is it defined?
(Yes, I have jstor access and I can ...
3
votes
1answer
109 views
Model of interactions between government and society (circular dependency)
I have a question concerning how to think about or how it is that people/governments approach improving society at a large scale. I've attached a diagram showing my thinking:
As you can see there is ...
3
votes
1answer
137 views
Are public opinion and expert views of ideological distances between political parties generally consistent?
This question is inspired by two papers I encountered, which came to the same conclusion using different sources to quantify the ideological distance between political parties in various countries: ...
5
votes
2answers
637 views
Are party fractionalization and ideological polarization independent (uncorrelated)?
A bold finding of a 2008 study by Russell J. Dalton is that--across the world--party fractionalization (roughly: how many parties there are in a country's legislative bodies, technically the ...
4
votes
2answers
265 views
Is the US-based observation that “the larger the proportion of minorities, the more exclusionary the electoral system” generalizable?
Trebbi et al. (2008) have observed that (in the US):
Majorities tend to disenfranchise minorities through strategic manipulation of electoral rules. With the aim of explaining changes in electoral ...
-5
votes
1answer
177 views
What political theories allow businessmen understand politic easily? [closed]
I am a businessman. A pretty successful one. I want to understand politic.
Currently I think I am just a customer of a state, namely, my state, where I paid protection fee called tax. However, ...
3
votes
2answers
182 views
Is Zelig an Arrovian dictator?
This question is a follow-up to this one, and particular serves to clarify a potential error in one of the presented references.
The Context
When elaborating Arrow’s non-dictatorship criterion, the ...
4
votes
1answer
182 views
Is voter turnout connected to dissatisfaction?
Is there a study revealing a connection between voter turnout and the level of dissatisfaction with the political situation?
3
votes
1answer
196 views
Anti Zionism vs Pro-Zionism vs Non-Zionism
I have been trying to read and understand Non-Zionism, but i did not get that much out of Wikipedia.
In wiki it is mentioned:
Non-Zionism is the political stance of Jews who "were [or are] willing
...
4
votes
2answers
3k views
Did direct democracy ever work (in a lab)?
We have had a couple of questions that discussed both the pros/cons of direct democracy in theory, as well as whether it was ever implemented in actual polity.
But these are not necessarily very ...
14
votes
5answers
3k views
What does the non-dictatorship principle of the Arrow theorem mean exactly?
According to Wiki:
The property of non-dictatorship is satisfied if there is no single voter i with the individual preference order P, such that P is the societal ("winning") preference order, ...
89
votes
16answers
28k views
Why allow convicted criminals to vote?
According to a 1998 HRW report,
The United States may have the world’s most restrictive criminal disenfranchisement laws. We know of no other democracy besides the United States in which convicted ...
15
votes
11answers
7k views
What purpose does economic inequality (inequality in wealth) serve?
What purpose does economic inequality (inequality in wealth) serve?
While one can argue that it's a result of differing productive capability, this is not the case with e.g. inherited wealth. Also, ...
9
votes
2answers
431 views
By what measures can the political power of an organization be estimated?
I asked this question earlier: Which is more dangerous to US democracy: Far-left or far-right ideologies? and after thinking about the comments received, I realized that I should start with some ...
6
votes
2answers
343 views
When did “equity” become important in political philosophy?
Today "equity" is a commonly mentioned political value. For example, in Kansas the state supreme court found school funding unconstitutional partially because it was not equitable to school districts. ...
3
votes
2answers
572 views
Who coined the term “precariat”?
Until recently I was under the impression that it is a recent term based on the works of Guy Standing. All publications (currently) cited in the Wikipedia page on the topic are from 2010 or newer. But ...
1
vote
0answers
242 views
Alternatives to Jordan Peterson on identity politics [closed]
I'm interested in reading about identity politics from the opposite point of view as Jordan Peterson, which is to say reading from those who embrace the concept. I am particularly interested in:
(1)...
