POSC150 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Grandfather Clause, White Primaries, Voting Rights Act Of 1965

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POSC150
• Professor: all

Document Summary

>organizing conflicts and interest (legislatures/elected executives/civil servants/ judges and justices) >what are some undemocratic elements of the constitution and how has the constitution change over. Politics: the process of determining who gets what, when, and how. Politics involves power: the conflict over leadership, structure, and policies. Definition of political science: the study of politics using scientific methods. Theory (in science): a general and widely accepted framework of understanding (the highest form of knowledge) Institutional rules affect how people define and act upon their self-interest. Collective outcomes are the combination of individual actions. Ex: collective violence is complicated-it has other foundations besides rational decision-making. Political science is different from the natural sciences in lacking a unifying theory. No theory that explains a phenomenon across different subfields, times, and places. Law (in science): a statement that universally holds (the law of gravity) The iron law of oligarchy: overtime decentralization of power becomes concentrated in a small set of leaders.