Theory of the Week - Details, episodes & analysis

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Theory of the Week

An production by A student's note

Science

Education

Frequency: 1 episode/22d. Total Eps: 12

Theory of the Week is a podcast where we tell the story of something we found interesting. This is why we say "theory-esque": the idea is that both we, as producers, and you, as listener, can learn something new with each episode. Topics are picked based on our backgrounds and what we're currently curious about, and can be oriented around a particular theory, research paper, book, or even person. To give you an idea of the variety: past topics range from Plato, through development economics, to Max Weber. Episodes run 15 to 20 minutes. This is a hobby project by students, so while we aim for at least bi-weekly episodes, expect some pauses during stressful periods like exams. Important: This isn't an authoritative account, but a low-entry introduction to ideas we find genuinely interesting, made by students for anyone curious to learn alongside us. Want to contribute or critique? Contact us on social media (@A Student's Note)

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https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1110589
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Max Weber and Politics as a Vocation

Wednesday, July 15, 2026 • Duration 17:11

This week's episode examines Max Weber's 1919 lecture "Politics as a Vocation," delivered in Munich during a period of significant political instability between the German Empire and the Weimar Republic.

We look at Weber's definition of politics as the pursuit of state power, his account of legitimate authority (traditional, charismatic, and legal-rational), and his distinction between "living for" politics and "living off" politics. Using the historical example of the British Parliament, we trace how access to political careers has been shaped by wealth and income. The episode closes with Weber's account of what distinguishes the politician from the bureaucrat, and the three qualities he saw as essential to political vocation: passion, responsibility, and judgement.

Reading:

Weber, M. (2021) Politics As a Vocation. Creative Media Partners, LLC. Available at: https://books.google.de/books?id=_9HpzgEACAAJ.

Picture of Max Weber:

Von Ernst Gottmann - https://cdn.britannica.com/49/39749-050-E773E614/Max-Weber-1918.jpg, Gemeinfrei, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90183495

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

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Why Do People Stay Poor?

Friday, July 3, 2026 • Duration 16:39

Hello and welcome to the eleventh episode of Theory of the Week, a weekly show from A Student’s Note where we explore a theory-esque concept each week.

Last time, we looked at how labour markets in developed economies can trap people in a secondary tier of precarious, low-paid work — not because of a lack of effort or ability, but because of structural conditions that are self-reinforcing. This week we are turning to developing countries, where the concept of poverty traps originates.

For this, we will look at a 2022 paper by Balboni and co-authors called « Why do people stay poor? », addressing the question of whether poverty can be explained through differences in fundamentals, such as abilities and so on, or in opportunities, that is, access to assets.

But let us begin from the beginning.

Sources

Balboni, C., Bandiera, O., Burgess, R., Ghatak, M., & Heil, A. (2022). Why Do People Stay Poor? The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 137(2), 785–844.

Banerjee, A. V., & Duflo, E. (2007). The Economic Lives of the Poor. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(1), 141–167.

Kraay, A., & McKenzie, D. (2014). Do Poverty Traps Exist? Assessing the Evidence. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(3), 127–148.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

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Doeringer, Piore, and the dual labour market theory

Tuesday, April 14, 2026 • Duration 19:46

Hello and welcome to the tenth episode of Theory of the Week, a weekly show from A Student’s Note where we explore a theory-esque concept each week.

This and next week I want to talk about structural factors that keep people in poverty. Not poverty in the sense of not trying hard enough, but poverty in the sense of circumstances that make it nearly impossible to think beyond tomorrow, regardless of effort or ability. People who may well be working, but in conditions where structural factors beyond their control prevent them from ever finding a way out.

I want to dedicate two episodes to this topic because poverty traps exist in both developed and developing countries, even though we are of course talking about very different levels and forms of poverty.

For developed countries, we might expect reasonably efficient labour market outcomes. After all, these are highly developed economies with formal education systems, labour market regulations, and extensive welfare states. If we control for differences in human capital, meaning education, acquired skills, and general ability, we might expect outcomes to be largely unbiased.

But then consider these questions. How can it be that people with precarious jobs tend to stay in precarious jobs? How can it be that two people with a similar educational background end up in very different wealth positions? And how can it be that someone’s likelihood of ever reaching stable employment depends so heavily on their starting point? Differences in individual behaviour and ability are one answer. But are those differences really independent of the conditions people grow up and work in?

One theory that tries to answer these questions is the dual labour market theory, developed by Doeringer and Piore in 1971. It argues that there are in fact two distinct levels of the labour market: a primary and a secondary one.

The primary sector is characterised by stable employment, good opportunities to advance, and relatively high pay with amenities like paid leave. The secondary sector, by contrast, is characterised by unstable employment and low pay. Neither employer nor worker invests much in the relationship because the employment is simply not designed to last. The jobs are precarious, offer little opportunity to progress, and are often short-term by design.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

Lipset, Rokkan, and the Cleavage Theory

Friday, March 27, 2026 • Duration 18:49

Hello and welcome to the ninth episode of Theory of the Week a weekly show from A student’s note where we explore a theory-esque concept each week.

This week I would like to introduce a macro-sociological approach to explaining voting behaviour. This means that we are discussion a theory which looks at the society, claiming that knowing about the social circumstances of different groups can help us to better understand their voting behaviour.

We are going to explore Cleavage Theory, developed by Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan, which is still widely used today as a framework for explaining voter behaviour and party alignment.

But let us start from the beginning.

References

Epstein, L.D. (1969) ‘Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, by Seymour M. Lipset, Stein Rokkan’, Political Science Quarterly, 84(1), pp. 158–159. Available at: https://doi.org/10.2307/2147080.

Inglehart, R. (1977) The Silent Revolution: Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics. Princeton University Press. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt13x18ck (Accessed: 27 March 2026).

Kriesi, H. et al. (2008) West European Politics in the Age of Globalization. 1st edn. Cambridge University Press. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511790720.

Lipset, S.M. and Rokkan, S. (1967) Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-national Perspectives. Free Press.

Pappi, F.U. (1977) ‘Sozialstruktur, gesellschaftliche Wertorientierungen und Wahlabsicht: Ergebnisse eines Zeitvergleichs des deutschen Elektorats 1953 und 1976’, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 18(2/3), pp. 195–229.

Schmitt-Beck, R. (2007) ‘Seymour M. Lipset/Stein Rokkan (Hrsg.), Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-National Perspectives, New York/London 1967’, in S. Kailitz (ed.) . Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, pp. 251–255. Available at: .

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

Jean Jacques Rousseau and the general will

Friday, March 6, 2026 • Duration 19:29

Hello and welcome to the eighth episode of Theory of the Week, a weekly show from A Student’s Note where we explore a theory‑esque concept each week.

This week I would like to introduce another important contractualist—besides Locke and Hobbes, who we covered in the fifth episode. Today I would like to talk about Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the most influential but also controversial figures in modern political philosophy.

He was born in Geneva in 1712 and was markedly an intellectual outsider among his contemporary Enlightenment thinkers, because he was deeply sceptical of the progress and rationalism that figures like Voltaire celebrated. You may know him from the famous line “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”

Interestingly, while the diagnosis was condemned during his life, with both personal and intellectual consequences, it is the solution that became the subject of a later controversy.

But let us start from the beginning.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

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John Rawls and A Theory of Justice

Sunday, February 15, 2026 • Duration 15:11

Hello and welcome to the seventh episode of Theory of the Week, a weekly show from A Student’s Note where we explore a theory‑esque concept each week.

We are once again back from a break. My January and February were full of exams and papers, so we were missing a speaker for a while. But enough of that.

Today we are talking about a classic figure of modern political philosophy: John Rawls. He is mainly known for his Theory of Justice, also called justice as fairness – which some of you may have heard of. In this episode, I will first give some biographical background, then outline his theory, and finally talk about the wider impact of John Rawls.

Let us begin!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

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Social Contract Theory in Hobbes and Locke

Monday, December 29, 2025 • Duration 19:39

Hello and welcome to the sixth episode of Theory of the Week. A weekly show from A Student’s Note where we explore a theory-esque concept each week.

For Christmas we took a little break, and hope you were able to do the same. In any case, we hope you had a fantastic Christmas.

This time I would like to explore social contract theory, but there are a lot of theorists who used this heuristic of natural state and society. To account for the different approaches, I chose to contrast the theories of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, two classical contractualists.

In my opinion, this comparison gives a good understanding of how different classical theorists came to surprisingly different results.

But I have already talked a lot without explaining what a social contract theory is. So let’s start from the beginning.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

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Alexander Wendt and the Social Construction of Anarchy

Monday, December 15, 2025 • Duration 14:18

Welcome to the fifth episode of Theory of a Week, a weekly show from a student’s note, where we explore a theory-esque concept each week.

This week we are entering the arena of international relations theories by exploring the social-constructivist approach. Social constructivism gives us tools to explain changes in the nature of international politics and offers a powerful critique of neorealist theories, which tend to explain change as a return to a predefined ‘natural state’ of self-help.

These tools help us give more nuanced answers when we try, for example, to make sense of NATO allies starting to doubt whether the United States would really defend them, or Germany suddenly redefining its relationship with Russia.

For this, I would like to take a slightly different approach than usual and trace the core argument from Alexander Wendt’s 1992 article ‘Anarchy is what states make of it: the social construction of power politics’ from beginning to end, instead of combining different sources and perspectives.

So this week, we really need to start from the beginning.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

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John Maynard Keynes and the State in a Market Economy

Monday, December 8, 2025 • Duration 11:06

Hello and welcome to the fourth episode of Theory of a Week, a weekly show from a student’s note, where we explore a theory-esque concept each week.

This week is somewhat of a continuation of last week’s episode, because we will cover a second path‑defining economist: John Maynard Keynes. He was active in early 20th‑century Europe, a period marked by war, social unrest, and the Great Depression. In this crisis‑ridden context, many core economic ideas were questioned – including Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” and the belief in fully self‑regulating markets.

In this episode, we introduce Keynes’s key insights about aggregate demand, unemployment, and the role of the state in stabilising a capitalist economy. We discuss why, for Keynes, markets can get stuck in deep recessions, why government spending and fiscal policy matter, and how his ideas reshaped macroeconomics and economic policy after the 1930s.

If you’re interested in macroeconomics, economic crises, or debates about austerity versus stimulus, this episode on John Maynard Keynes and the rise of Keynesian economics is for you.

Let’s get started.

Chapters

* Introduction

* The Great Depression

* The break with classical economic thought

* The role of the state

* A new vision of economic order

* Closing thought

Music credits

Music track: Daydreams by PufinoSource: https://freetouse.com/musicMusic for Video (Free Download)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand

Monday, December 1, 2025 • Duration 13:03

Hello and welcome to the third episode of  Theory of a Week, the new weekly show from a student’s note, where we explore a new  theory-esque concept each week.This third episode explores the surprisingly modern thoughts of Adam Smith.

In this episode, we travel to 18th‑century Scotland to unpack Adam Smith’s core ideas from The Wealth of Nations: division of labour, the market mechanism, and the famous “invisible hand.” We look at how his explanation of England’s prosperity through specialisation and productivity still underpins modern microeconomics, and how his account of prices gravitating towards a “natural price” anticipates today’s supply‑and‑demand models.

At the same time, we explore Smith’s critical side: his worries about the dark side of specialisation, the risk of deskilling and alienation, and his hope that rising productivity would spread wealth through society.

If you’re interested in political economy, the history of economic thought, or just want to understand what the “invisible hand” really means (and doesn’t mean), this episode is for you.

Let’s get started.

Chapters

* Introduction

* England’s Prosperity

* Virtues of Division of Labour

* The Invisible Hand

* Exploring the Market Mechanism

* The Problematisation of Specialisation & Social Inequality

Music credits

Music track: Daydreams by PufinoSource: https://freetouse.com/musicMusic for Video (Free Download)

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit astudentsnote.substack.com

Theory of the Week - Details, episodes & analysis

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Theory of the Week - Details, episodes & analysis

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