LECTURE NOTES ON LIBERALISM: PART OF WORLD POLITICS (P0131)

IN-DEPTH LECTURE NOTES ON METHODS OF ANALYSIS : PART OF PO107 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS

IN-DEPTH LECTURE NOTES ON IDEOLOGY: PART OF PO107 INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS

NOTES ON THE INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS EXAM

Full lecture notes for the Introduction to Politics course. Covers conceptualisation and study of politics, power, the state, democracy, legitimacy, justice, theories of rights, political representation and participation, political parties, media and pressure groups, bureaucracy, national assemblies and executives, political ideology (including conservatism, liberalism, Marxism, nationalism, feminism, socialism), globalisation, and 21st century politics.

This essay critically examines the connections between modern mass media and politics, firstly assessing the claim that it has a significant impact on public opinion and secondly that such opinion is a core component of understanding modern politics. It will be argued that the media’s impact on public opinion is an important factor, but that it is by no means static or predictable and is often overestimated with regard to the understanding of politics as a whole.

This essay examines Dahl’s argument for coercive, then the three faces of power, then critical approaches at the inter-state and intra-state level in an attempt to demonstrate the difficulties in formulating umbrella theories of power and to assess the possibility of a framework by which political power can be judged. It concludes that power is not a simple and categorisable phenomenon - undoubtedly, agency is a factor, as is the power embedded in social, economic and political structures, ye...