What typology would you create that encompasses all types of action?
The Sources of Russian Regionalism by Yoshiko M. Herrera looks at political factors which lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union and birth of a new Russia. Herrera assesses how literary movements, the economy, and political movements affected Russia in the early 1990s. His research looks at regionalism in Russia and how that contributed to political ideology changes. The reading concludes with Herrera outlining the order and relationships of his research.
As I reflect on the reading, I think about the regionalism of the United States. We are divided in political ideology in a way that could be tracked by a flow chart. Southern states ideology differs from northern state ideology as well as urban city ideology. These disagreements could potentially be traced back to the Constitutional Convention. A flow chart could represent how events and actions such as the Civil War or FDR’s New Deal led America to its current ideology.
In considering what typology I would create that encompasses all types of action, I would choose a flowchart.. A flowchart accounts for the strategizing which occurs in taking action. I feel that action is a response to a cost-benefit analysis. That analysis encompasses whether an individual or group values things which benefit themselves or others. Actions are also made considering values or morals. A flowchart can effectively represent the process of taking action.
This past semester I took an economics course on game theory. We discussed the concept of sequential games in which individuals choose strategy after witnessing a previous action. In order to solve sequential games, we utilized game trees which showed how a combination of actions leads to a variety of payoffs. All actions involve the weighing of payoffs and game theory effectively demonstrates this concept. Another typography used in game theory are payoff matrices. Payoff matrices are used to solve simultaneous games where players take action only with anticipatory information.
Protests are a form of sequential action. They often are a response to a controversial action. The protest could then be disrupted by law enforcement intervention or extraordinary action. The collective action of protesting is well represented by flow charts. Protests have led to legislative and cultural changes. Flow charts can show the process of how protests affect a community.
One of the most impactful protests of my lifetime was the Women’s March on Washington in 2017. The protests responded to sexism in the United States after the events of the 2016 Presidential Election. The protest led to no legislative changes but united Americans around feminist values and opposed the Trump Presidency. If we look at the Women’s March through the eyes of a flow chart, we can start with actions preceding the election of Donald Trump. A flow chart would assess how the election of Hillary Clinton would have prompted a different event than the Women’s March or how if Trump had used different rhetoric how his critics would have responded. I believe that other forms of typography do not evaluate how actions are linked through a casual chain.
Hi Peter,
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job in answering the reading question. I had a hard time identifying this link when I wrote my blog but your example regarding the US and its history is very comprehendable. I agree with you that aflow chart is the most reasonable form of typology in that it defines causation. While this is the epitome of movements advocating for change (causal links), I think its important to recognize that there are cross-place scenarios, as opposed to cross-time, that may benefit from other forms of typology where causality / correlation is not the main point.
I agree with Rebecca's comments, but I want to engage with your discussion of game theory. The underlying assumption of most game theoretical models is rational choice, i.e., calculating costs and benefits as you have described here. But then we talked about and read about how protesters get other protesters to turn out which is fundamentally wrapped up in questions of prospect theory and emotional responses. How can you square these two theoretical ideas? Are protesters who show up because they are driven by emotions or a friend rational? Can we predict their cost-benefit calculations as is possible when using rational choice theory?
ReplyDeleteThe Intro to Comparative Politics class I took last semester centered around game theory as well. I think it is interesting that you bring it up here when considering flow charts and I do think it can have some applicability. I agree with Professor O'Brochta, however, that emotion plays a large role in collective action. Why do you think that action is a response to cost-benefit analysis? Is action always a response to cost-benefit analysis? I think there are ways to square the two models, but it's challenging. Nice work synthesizing lots of different political science and historical concepts.
ReplyDeleteYou make good points about the way that flowcharts represent both the critical events themselves (the women's march, the BLM protests, etc.) but also the decisions and events and conditions that led up to those critical events. Flowcharts can be nuanced and have the potential to represent the whole scope of an event's unfolding, from the necessary conditions to preliminary actions to the event itself and to the aftermath. This makes them much more useful as a typology for encompassing all types of action if your objective is to focus on one event in particular and understand where it came from and what became of it.
ReplyDeletePeter, really interesting analysis! I like how you connected your game theory class to the reading and I couldn't agree more! The way leaders have to analyze a previous action and make a next move is interesting, as opposed to making a decision several steps in the future way in advance. Nice work.
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