Political Science Scope and Methods

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Political Science Scopeand Methods

• Models and Theories in
• Political Science

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Models and Methods

• History of Political Science
• How should we conduct research?
• Specific Research Programs
• Duvergers Law (Riker)
• Realignment literature (Mayhew)

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Theories and Evidence

• Inductive vs. Deductive Theorizing
• Induction General conclusions are drawn from
  particular facts. Look for patterns in facts
  build theories from them.
• Deduction Here you reason from the general to
  the particular. Start with general theories
  build to specific predictions about the world

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Philosophy of Science

• Popper
• Falsification
• Critical tests
• Kuhn
• Normal Science
• Paradigm shifts

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Clocks and Clouds

• Politics as Clocks
• Emphasis on discovering regularities in political
  science
• Concern with generalization of regularities
  through covering laws
• Focus on causality as an explanatory concept.
• Deductive? Inductive?

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More on Clocks and Clouds

• Statistical methods and Rational Choice theory
• One and the same?
• Battle between quantoids and non-quantoids

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• Some may question the coupling of deductive
  theory and quantitative research under the one
  rubric of hard science. Quantitative
  researchers do at least schematically empirical
  work, whereas most deductive theorists use
  empirical data only for anecdotal illustration.
  But it was radical quantifiers, those who analyze
  all questions with statistics, who first deformed
  the discipline in the name of hard science. It
  was they who popularized the study of politics
  outside of its historical and cultural setting,
  who made methodology into the core of graduate
  education while degrading political philosophy
  and foreign language study, and who spawned the
  trend toward method-driven rather than
  problem-driven research.
• Gregory Kaska (2001)

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More from Kaska

• The Perestroika movement is a reaction against
  scholars who wish to turn the study of politics
  into what Thomas Kuhn called a normal science.
  They seek to impose a consensus on
  epistemological and methodological questions in
  order to hasten scientific progress. This group
  of scholars comprises mainly rational choice
  theorists, formal modelers, and those who do
  exclusively quantitative research. I refer to
  them as advocates of hard science.

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Politics as Clouds

• Political behavior as a cloud
• Lack of predictability
• Need to delve deep and come up with a complex
  understanding of the political world.

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Dimensions to Consider

• Clocks vs. Clouds (degrees of scientification)
• Inductive vs. Deductive theories.

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Realignment and Duvergers Law

• Inductive vs. Deductive theorizing
• Are these appropriate empirical approaches
• Does knowledge cumulate?
• What is political science? What should it be?

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Where does this leave us?

• A scientific ideal
• Multiple methods
• Good research design
• Fair collection and presentation of evidence
• Logical inferences drawn from that evidence

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Example Iraq War

• Please give your best guess to this next
  question, even if you are not sure of the correct
  answer. As you know, the United States is
  currently involved in a war in Iraq. Do you
  happen to know how many soldiers of the U.S.
  military have been killed in Iraq since the
  fighting began in March 2003?

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Log (Base 10) of Estimates of U.S. Troop Deaths
in Iraq, 2004
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Table 3 Predicted Probability of Causality
Estimates
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Effect of Information Treatment on Support for
War in Iraq Among Under-Estimators Did The U.S.
Make The Right Decision in Using Military Force
against Iraq?
N252 ?2(1)0.40 Pr0.53 Has The Current War in
Iraq Been Worth Fighting?
N253 ?2(1)0.71 Pr0.40
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Among Over-estimators Did The U.S. Make The
Right Decision in Using Military Force against
Iraq?
N57 ?2(1)0.00 Pr0.95 Has The Current War in
Iraq Been Worth Fighting?
N57?2(1)0.26 Pr0.61