Politics: The Basics, 4th Edition

(Ann) #1

  • 1 Politics Acknowledgements xix

    • This chapter

    • Politics in everyday life

    • What is politics?

    • Approaches to the study of politics

    • Traditional scholarship

    • Social science and politics

    • Schools of political science

    • Theories, models, paradigms

    • Radical and postmodernist criticism

    • Conclusion

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 2 Systems

    • This chapter

    • States and societies

    • Politics without the state: tribal societies

    • Feudalism

    • States without nations: kingdoms

    • States without nations: empires

    • Nations and states

    • The nation state and sovereignty

    • Politics between states

    • Politics beyond the state: international institutions

    • Multinational enterprises and ‘globalisation’

    • Politics as a universal activity

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 3 Concepts

    • This chapter

    • Human nature and politics

    • Is the state necessary?

    • Why should i obey the state?

    • The nature of authority

    • What is justice?

    • Individualism versus collectivism

    • Rights: natural, human, legal

    • Equality

    • Positive and negative freedom

    • Analysing political concepts

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 4 Ideologies

    • This chapter

    • Ideology

    • ‘Right’ versus ‘left’

    • The old right: monarchism

    • The radical right: Nazism and fascism

    • Marxism

    • Leninism and Stalinism

    • Other Marxisms

    • Radicalism

    • Radical theism – Catholic, Protestant and Islamic

    • Ecology as political radicalism

    • Feminism as political radicalism

    • Liberalism

    • Conservatism

    • Thatcherism and neo-conservatism

    • Christian democracy

    • Socialism and social democracy

    • Communitarianism and the ‘third way’

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 5 Processes

    • This chapter

    • Political identity

    • Political socialisation and political culture

    • Localism, nationalism, religion and ethnicity

    • Racial and ethnic conflict

    • Dominance, assimilation and social pluralism

    • Elites, classes and political pluralism

    • Political change

    • Coups d’étatand revolutions

    • Terror and terrorism

    • Class conflict in the twenty-first century

    • Post-industrial politics: the information polity?

    • ‘North’ versus ‘South’?

    • Conclusion

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 6 States

    • This chapter

    • Types of state

    • Democracy, the welfare state and the market

    • Forms of representative democracy

    • Military autocracy

    • Civil autocracy

    • Totalitarian governments

    • Nazi government

    • Soviet government

    • Islamic government – breaking the mould?

    • Multi-level government

    • European political institutions

    • Local government

    • Conclusion

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 7 Democracy

    • This chapter

    • How can government be ‘democratic’?

    • Participation and direct democracy

    • Choosing rulers

    • Electoral systems

    • The executive

    • The legislature

    • The judiciary

    • Constitutions and constitutionalism

    • Rights and constitutions

    • Pluralist policy making

    • Corporatism

    • Centralisation

    • Political communication

    • Political parties

    • ‘Spin’ and political marketing

    • The permanent campaign

    • Interest groups

    • The mass media

    • The Internet

    • Democracy and communication

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • 8 Policies

    • This chapter

    • Public policy problems and solutions

    • The choice of social decision-making mechanisms

    • The case for the market

    • Problems of market decision making

    • Voluntary organisation

    • Rational policy making: bureaucracy

    • Problems with ‘rational’ policy making

    • Incremental decision making

    • The policy process

    • Implementing public policy

    • Managing local public policy

    • Multi-level governance

    • Evaluating public policy

    • Monitoring performance in public policy

    • Evaluating policy outcomes: the distribution of wealth and income

    • The political policy-making process

    • A crisis in democratic politics?

    • Taking political action

    • Recommended reading

    • Websites



  • Appendix: sources on politics

  • References

  • Index

  • 4.1 Classifying ideologies FIGURES

  • 8.1 Levels of inter-organisational bargaining

  • 8.2 Managing local public service provision

  • 1.1 Definitions of ‘politics’ and ‘power’ BOXES

  • 1.2 Assessing the use of methodology in politics

  • 2.1 Definition of ‘state’

  • 2.2 Definitions of globalisation

  • 2.3 Globalisation – challenges to the nation state

  • 3.1 Definitions of anarchism

  • 3.2 Justice

  • 3.3 Concepts of equality: summary

  • 3.4 Definitions of freedom

  • 4.1 Ideology as a political concept

  • 5.1 Definitions of political socialisation

  • 5.2 Political culture

  • 5.3 Propositions from pluralist, elite and Marxist models of power

  • 5.4 North v South: a major fault line in international relations?

  • 5.5 Major political divisions

  • 6.1 Republican, autocratic and totalitarian states

  • 6.2 Capitalism

  • 6.3 The welfare state

  • 6.4 Forms of representative democracy

  • 6.5 The principle of subsidiarity

  • 6.6 Relations between levels of government

  • 7.1 Political parties

  • 7.2 Pressure or interest groups

  • 8.1 Choice of social decision-making mechanism

  • 8.2 Weber’s characteristics of bureaucracy

  • 8.3 A rational–comprehensive model of decision making

  • 8.4 Why organisations are not always rational

  • 8.5 Hogwood and Gunn’s model of the policy process

  • 8.6 Ten principles for reinventing government

  • 8.7 The 3 ‘E’s: efficiency; economy; effectiveness

  • 1.1 Major contemporary approaches to politics TABLES

  • 2.1 Multinationals and countries compared

  • 4.1 Attitudes to gender differences

  • 5.1(a) Typical socialisation research findings: attitudes to president

    • used sources of information about foreign people 5.1(b) Typical socialisation research findings: most popularly



  • 5.2 Typical research findings: political culture

  • 5.3 Summary: critics of pluralism

  • 5.4 From public administration to information polity

  • 6.1 The trend to democracy, 1974–2000

  • 6.2 Parliamentary versus presidential systems

  • 7.1 Political marketing and New Labour

  • 8.1 Marketable wealth in Britain

  • 8.2 World population below international poverty line (2001)

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