Evolutionary Psychology and Political Science: The Role of Human Psychology in Institutional Structures

Author(s):  
Rose McDermott
Author(s):  
Paul Sagar

This chapter examines the role of history and the family in debates over human sociability and the foundations of politics, drawing attention to how David Hume was able to revolutionize the use of state-of-nature conjectures in order to elucidate the emergence of institutional structures and related moral values. According to Thomas Hobbes, human psychology was fundamentally characterized by the balancing of appetites and aversions: all motivation could be explained in terms of the seeking of private pleasure and the avoidance of private pain. Bernard Mandeville essentially followed Hobbes, refusing to give any role to fellow feeling in explaining human sociability. The chapter first considers Hume's rejection of Hobbes's and Mandeville's reductive accounts of human psychology before discussing Hobbes's views on the question of the family and his notion of the state of nature. It also analyzes the debate involving Hobbes's British successors, namely: Mandeville, Anthony Ashley Cooper, and Francis Hutcheson.


Author(s):  
S.J. Matthew Carnes

The transformation of political science in recent decades opens the door for a new but so far poorly cultivated examination of the common good. Four significant “turns” characterize the modern study of politics and government. Each is rooted in the discipline’s increased emphasis on empirical rigor, with its attendant scientific theory-building, measurement, and hypothesis testing. Together, these new orientations allow political science to enrich our understanding of causality, our basic definitions of the common good, and our view of human nature and society. In particular, the chapter suggests that traditional descriptions of the common good in Catholic theology have been overly irenic and not sufficiently appreciative of the role of contention in daily life, on both a national and international scale.


Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  

This chapter analyses the role of think tanks in generating a distinctive mode of policy knowledge, pragmatically orientated to inform and shape issues of importance to civil society. Drawing on political science literature, we argue that think tanks exploit niche areas of expertise and influence to actively mobilize policy analyses and recommendations across diverse stakeholders. Through our exploratory mapping of think tanks, geographically concentrated within London, we characterize their influence as significantly boosting knowledge intensity across the regional ecosystem. In particular, we study the empirical case of one London-based think tank which powerfully mobilized policy knowledge through its formal and informal networks to build influential expert consensus amongst key stakeholders. We conclude that such organizations act as key knowledge producers and mobilizers, with significant potential to influence policy discourses and implementation.


Author(s):  
Lisa L. M. Welling ◽  
Todd K. Shackelford

Evolutionary psychology and behavioral endocrinology provide complementary perspectives on interpreting human behavior and psychology. Hormones can function as underlying mechanisms that influence behavior in functional ways. Understanding these proximate mechanisms can inform ultimate explanations of human psychology. This chapter introduces this edited volume by first discussing evolutionary perspectives in behavioral endocrinology. It then briefly addresses three broad topic areas of behavioral endocrinology: (1) development and survival, (2) reproductive behavior, and (3) social and affective behavior. It provides examples of research within each of these areas and describes potential adaptations. The chapter concludes with a discussion on the importance of integrating mechanisms with function when investigating human behavior and psychology.


Author(s):  
Patricia Leavy

The book editor offers some final comments about the state of the field and promise for the future. Leavy suggests researchers consider using the language of “shapes” to talk about the forms their research takes and to highlight the ongoing role of the research community in shaping knowledge-building practices. She reviews the challenges and rewards of taking your work public. Leavy concludes by noting that institutional structures need to evolve their rewards criteria in order to meet the demands of practicing contemporary research and suggests that professors update their teaching practices to bring the audiences of research into the forefront of discussions of methodology.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 844-861
Author(s):  
Ron E. Hassner

AbstractAllusions to holy scriptures and quotes from sacred texts appear in hundreds of political science articles. Yet while we treat other ancient texts with reverence and diligence, we have not extended a similar care to the holy scriptures of the world's religions. Political scientists often refer to biblical events, statements, and turns of phrase but rarely cite them, chapter and verse. They are careless about referencing the precise translation of the holy texts used, tend to cite religious passages out of context, and disregard the role of religious tradition, interpretation, and practice in shaping and reshaping the meaning of holy texts. I offer examples for these trends, provide evidence for their harmful implications and offer guidelines for the appropriate treatment of sacred texts as formal scholarly sources.


2015 ◽  
Vol 725-726 ◽  
pp. 996-1001
Author(s):  
Galina Tokunova ◽  
Alexander Petrov

The increased role of knowledge in the economics, the growth of the role of education and innovations caused the necessity to revise the role of the basic subjects in the market (the government, business structures, universities) and mechanisms of their interaction. The primary importance is now being shifted towards such subjects of innovations as resource centers, innovative businesses, technological platforms, the clusters capable of exerting efficient influence upon the innovations process, which, in its turn, improves the competitive ability of particular spheres of business and entire national economics. This process also influenced the construction industry. The purpose of this research is to analyze the manifestation of the phenomenon of the knowledge-based economics in the construction sphere. The tasks of this research: firstly, to highlight the evolution of the scientific discipline “knowledge-based economics”; secondly, to analyze the efficiency of the phenomenon on the example of the USA, the EC and Russia; thirdly, to analyze the innovative process in the construction sphere; fourthly, to highlight the role of various institutional structures (resource centers, innovative businesses, technological platforms, clusters) for innovative activity in the construction sphere.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Saulius Vasiliauskas

Young Writers in the Soviet Literary Field: The Role of Institutional Structures


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