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Introduction: Why Political Psychology?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
The following four chapters present the case for seeing political psychology as important and relevant. It is in the details of these analyses that the answer to the question raised in the title has to be sought. The aim of this Introduction is to provide some preliminary clarification by describing the role and scope of the discipline, setting out the central question it raises, providing some examples, and explaining the method I have opted for.
THEORIES VERSUS MECHANISMS
I shall start with the last of these. Why would it seem useful, when explaining a theoretical approach, to concentrate on writers rather than on the theory itself? Although Veyne, Zinoviev, and Tocqueville are brilliant writers, may not their splendid style be a hindrance to any systematic exposition of a coherent theory? Does one have to be a genius to be a practitioner of political philosophy?
My reply is that the choice of these three writers itself ensures a degree of coherence, even if it is largely accidental and post factum. From Aristotle to the present political theorists have proposed innumerable typologies of political regimes. Each has its advantages and drawbacks, and none can claim any special status or any particular close relationship to the nature of things. Choosing Veyne, Zinoviev, and Tocqueville suggests a division of political systems into authoritarian, totalitarian, and democratic regimes.
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- Information
- Political Psychology , pp. 1 - 34Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993