POLI 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: John Stuart Mill, Limited Government, Louis Hartz
17 May 2018
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Professor
January 11th, 2018
Lecture 2: Founding Ideas: The “isms”
The Three “isms”
●Conservatism (right on the continuum)
●Liberalism (in the middle)
●Socialism (left on the continuum)
*Some beliefs are similar in some respects. The meanings of these words can change over time
(that is why we can distinguish between classical and contemporary beliefs).
Political Culture
●Political culture
- Can think of it like a stew. People have different values and different ideological
commitments in different places. Some places may have similar ingredients, some
may have different amounts of each, and some regions have some things missing
●Political culture was first introduced by an American scholar using Fragment Theory
- It was later taken up by Canadian scholars to explain Canadian political culture
●Grant Horowitz was one of the Canadian scholars that picked up Fragment Theory
●Why we look at political culture:
- It explains certain political outcomes
- In Canada some policies come to pass, but it would not be the case in the US,
because there is more of a socialist culture here and that makes Canada unique
- Political culture can be a way of explaining something else (independent variable)
- We can also explain political culture itself (dependent variable)
Classical or Market Liberalism
●Liberty
●Freedom
●Contemporary view: leftist
●Commitment to free markets
●Valuing individualism and individual freedom
●Limited government involvement
●All about change, modifying, and adapting (unlike conservatism which is more about
conserving or keeping traditions)
●Central theorists: John Locke and John Stuart Mill
●The role of government should be to facilitate freedom
Document Summary
The meanings of these words can change over time (that is why we can distinguish between classical and contemporary beliefs). Can think of it like a stew. People have different values and different ideological commitments in different places. Some places may have similar ingredients, some may have different amounts of each, and some regions have some things missing. Political culture was first introduced by an american scholar using fragment theory. It was later taken up by canadian scholars to explain canadian political culture. Grant horowitz was one of the canadian scholars that picked up fragment theory. In canada some policies come to pass, but it would not be the case in the us, because there is more of a socialist culture here and that makes canada unique. Political culture can be a way of explaining something else (independent variable) We can also explain political culture itself (dependent variable)
