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In Karl Popper's famous book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, appears the formulation social engineering. That is an unfortunate wording. There is nothing mechanical in Popper's political strategy. The keywords are rather piece-meal & trial & error. It is even possible to characterize Popper as -- up to a point -- anti-rationalistic. His warning that we should not think too much of our knowledge of the functioning of the social world & of our ability to make forecasts, reminds one of what a critic of the French Revolution like Edmund Burke had to say. We should start with the delivered institutions, diagnose what is working badly &, aware of possible error, try to improve it. That said, one is not surprised of meeting a strain of antipolitics in Popper's philosophy. Although Popper welcomes measures to clear away suffering & distress, it is uncertain how he would balance his negative utilitarianism against individual freedom. He is distrustful of political power. The idea that democracy gives the people the instrument of governing is an illusion. Democracy's point is to make it possible to dismiss a government (notice the parallel with his methodology, a government is a kind of hypothesis, the election an opportunity for falsification.) However, it is not Popper's political philosophy in a substantial meaning that makes him worth studying, but his theory of the critical discourse, a theory that is very relevant for a reformistic political strategy. The idea of the Popperian discourse is not to get the parties closer emotionally, not to reach a compromise, not even to convince, but for me to listen to & learn from the criticism of my hypotheses. People with divergent standpoints should not be kept out of the discourse, they should be welcomed. Popper admires Greek culture up to Socrates & he emphasizes its openness to influences from other cultures along the shores of the Mediterranean. That is in keeping with Popper's antinationalism. Nationalism fattens stupidity & is often the cause of devastating violence. In his later works Popper regularly uses an evolutionary model & his theory of language is no exception. He sets forth how the development of describing, language's third function besides expressing & warning, created the possibility of storytelling. Now, stories can be true & false, & that makes language's fourth function necessary, the function of argumentation, of proving or disproving of what has been said. Lying, however, is a wonderful invention. To lie, to say what is not, but could be true, is a nursery for fantasy & creativeness. 33 References. Adapted from the source document.

Policymakers in Sweden, as in most of the rest of the world, believe that we are responsible for the crimes we commit but not for our ill health. One reason for why we are excused for the latter, even in cases where our actions is the cause of our ill health, is because these actions are in turn ultimately caused by factors outside our control. If this is true for these actions, however, it seems that the same thing could be said with regard to our criminal behavior. In this paper I argue that this disparate position can be explained with reference to data from the field of experimental philosophy. In cases where individuals have done something we believe is morally wrong, then we tend to disregard from the fact that their behavior is ultimately caused by factors outside their control. In cases where individuals instead have done something morally neutral, then we instead tend heed to the fact that their actions is ultimately caused by factors outside their control. Since most of us believe that being sick is morally neutral & committing a crime is morally wrong, this can explain why policymakers tend to think that we are responsible for the one but not the other. Adapted from the source document.

During the past two decades right-wing populist parties have made substantial electoral gains in many West European countries. In Sweden the success of such parties has been limited compared to, eg, Denmark & Norway. In 1998 an electoral coalition of local populist parties, "Skanes Val," in southern Sweden gained 4.1% of the votes in the regional elections & six mandates in the regional assembly. However, the coalition was split already a year before the subsequent election in 2002. One of the factions started technical cooperation with the ring-wing extremist party "Sverigedemokraterna" during the period leading up to the 2002 election. The reasons for the split of the coalition & the reasons why one of the factions chose to cooperate with "Sverigedemokraterna" are analyzed using the two dimensions right-wing populism vs right-wing extremism & nationalism vs regionalism. While both factions were clearly populist, they strongly differ in nationalism/regionalism. This is one plausible reason why more Swedish nationalist factions chose to cooperate with the nationalist party "Sverigedemokraterna.". 2 Tables, 1 Figure, 47 References. Adapted from the source document.

The examination of undergraduate essays in political science is confronted with a set of problems: weak inter-rater reliability, underdeveloped grading criteria, insufficient resources for tutoring & examination, weak throughput, & plagiarism. This article argues that insights from the approach of student-centered pedagogy may help to reduce these problems. More specifically, the article advocates greater reliance on explicit grading criteria, formative assessment, & peer involvement, & develops a set of six recommendations. Adapted from the source document.

Over the last decades there has been a growing interest in normative theory within the social sciences in general & political science in particular. Timeless questions of good & bad, right & wrong, & of the nature & justification of the good society -- of what the good society ought to be -- have thus surfaced again. However, not much has been written on the specific methodological issues that arise when explicitly approaching normative questions on social scientific, i.e. systematic & inter-subjective, grounds. Departing from a reflection concerning the conceptual meaning of norms & values -- the anchor of normative analysis -- & by confronting different axiological positions, this essay formulates a few guiding principles for a normative methodology. These principles include requirements on internal validity (accuracy, consistency, clarity, coherence, & intersubjective reasoning) as well as external validity (external justification, plausibility, & empirical relevance). 46 References. Adapted from the source document.