To impose one's own view of reality ... Earl Babbie'

1
The Science of Politics

• Introduction to Politics and Political Analysis
• Braunwarth

2
A Few Questions

• Take a second to write down your responses to the
  following questions
• What does political science mean to you?
• How do you think the study of political science
  will affect your daily life (if at all)?
• If you were going to teach this class, how would
  you set up the class?
• What was your best educational experience? Why?

3
Liberty v. Order

• Politics essentially decides the tradeoff between
  Order and Freedom
• We like both but cant have maximum amounts of
  both
• Where this tradeoff lies is the central feature
  of any political system

4
POWER

• Your textbook accentuates the interdisciplinary
  setting of politics
• What separate Political Science from other Social
  Science disciplines?
• Its emphasis on Power

5
Power

• Political Science differs from other sciences in
  part because of its emphasis on power
  (Machiavelli)
• Politics determines how power will be exercised
  Politics Matters
• Will we go to war? Who will Fight?
• Who have to pay taxes and who will avoid them?
• Public Policy allows for the repeated exercise of
  power

6
Identifying the ProblemSome Typical Big
Questions for Political Science

• Why is there war?
• What are the necessary and sufficient conditions
  of poverty?
• How do we account for intolerance?
• How do we avoid ecological catastrophes?
• Wide agreement that it is advantageous to avoid
  devastating wars, enhance prosperity, protect
  human rights, and guard against ecological
  disasters
• Less agreement on HOW we do this
• This is where political science comes in

7
Example of Poverty

• It is relatively easy to determine the facts of
  poverty who is poor, what is the poverty rate,
  how is it determined, etc.
• (13, 3X food budget, 20,000/family of 4,)
• This is the job of the journalist, not the
  scientist
• Much more difficult to determine why people are
  poor
• What do you think? We can come up with many
  explanations
• What should be done to alleviate poverty?
• The real exercise of power comes with the
  implementation of policy, which depends on the
  explanation of the problem
• For this reason, the competition for meaning to
  define why things are and explain the problem is
  fiercely contested politically
• Political Science can use scientific tools to
  help explain the causes of problems and,
  therefore, what should be done

8
Science of Politics v. the Practice of Politics

• Different people and groups have different
  understandings and beliefs which leads to a
  competition for meaning to define why things
  are and what should be done
• Everyone brings to the study of politics their
  own unique set of experiences.
• People organize and simplify their understanding
  of politics through conceptual frameworks.
• personal experience
• preferences
• expectations
• People use these frameworks to interpret
  political phenomena.

9
Science of Politics v. the Practice of Politics

• Political actors play on these understandings to
  attract popular support
• Political debate can be thought of as a
  competition to impose different truth claims
• To impose ones own view of reality
• People rely on different sources of knowledge
  that they believe to be true
• Three main sources of knowledge Authority,
  Personal, Scientific

10
Authority as a source of Truth

• Unquestioned source of knowledge
• Sometimes referred to as Dogma
• Person, authority figure (examples?)
• Religion/Document (examples?)
• Ideology
• Problem with this source of knowledge?
• Can put blinders on a believer
• What about conflicts with other sources of
  information?

11
Religious Zeal

• For example, both Christian and Islamic
  Fundamentalists talk of relying on God and faith
  to make decisions about war and terrorism
• If the war on terror is a divine mission with
  God on our side against evil doers
• Doesnt leave a lot of room for questioning
• Using Political Science to determine the best way
  do diffuse the threat of terrorism would be, at
  best, a secondary concern

12
Religious Zeal

• Given the problems with blindly following an
  authoritative source of knowledge, such as
  religion, why do so many follow this source of
  knowledge?
• It provides an important role as a security
  system
• The trouble with security is that it never lasts.
  Time makes ancient Gods uncouth (James Russell
  Lowell)
• This is true when there is resistance to change
  in science, politics, or religion

13
The problem with dogmagtscience

• If you know you are right and driven by religious
  or ideological faith, may be willing to use any
  tool available, including misleading those who
  dont understand to achieve your end
• Blinds believer to potential problems and
  alternatives

14
Personal Reflection as a source of Truth

• Use logic, thought, reflection, intuition,
  intelligence, hunches to determine truth
• Earl Babbies Experiential Reality
• Platos Philosopher Kings (most brilliant, no
  property, men)
• Problem with this source of knowledge?
• Function of Personal Circumstances
• Generally colored by authority influences
  (religion, ideology, etc.)
• Again, no mechanism for resolving disputes

15
Scientific Method

• Sets out procedure/mechanism for reaching
  knowledge claims
• Form hypothesis, collect data, test hypothesis
• Advantages over the other sources of knowledge?
• Is falsifiable
• Can never prove truth, can just fail to disprove

16

• Which of the three main sources of political
  information (authority, personal reflection, or
  science) seems to have had the most powerful
  impact on the contemporary world?
• Why is this the case?

17
Strengths of the Scientific Enterprise

• Can move us beyond the hunch to firm evidence
• Strives to eliminate anecdotal evidence
• Attempts to bring the highest possible levels of
  objectivity
• Brings a systematic logic to political problem
  solving

18
Politics as a Science

• What is the science in political science?
• Political science as a science emerged out of a
  postWorld War II movement called the behavioral
  revolution in the social sciences that attempted
  to bring with it More objectivity The
  application of the scientific method The use of
  quantifiable data

19
What is Political Science?

• But, social scientists usually cannot isolate
  individuals, organizations, and groups in the
  laboratory or isolate and manipulate the things
  that might influence them.
• Political scientists have come up with numerous
  ways of approximating the ideal of laboratory
  conditions, primarily through the use of
  statistics.

20
Weaknesses of the Scientific Method

• Not all political problems suitable for empirical
  research
• General difficulty conducting controlled
  experiments in the social sciences
• Spider complex (spinning grand theories from
  relatively small findings)
• Obsession with a particular research tool
• Tendency to focus on the status quo
• Triviality

21
What is Political Science?

• Some suggest that the use of statistics pushes
  researchers to examine things that can easily be
  counted, cataloged, or quantified.
• money
• votes
• weapons
• This causes important things that cannot be
  counted, like beliefs, expectations, or hopes to
  be discounted or ignored entirely.
• Still, researchers using statistics have made
  tremendous contributions to the study of politics.

22
What is Political Science?

• Other political scholars have increased our
  understanding of the world by showing how
  rhetoric, decision process, and culture influence
  the behaviors of individuals and governments.

23
What is Political Science?

• The best way to approach science may be to use
  social scientist Earl Babbies framework.
• Experiential reality versus agreement reality.
• experiential reality the things we directly
  experience.
• agreement reality (more important) things we
  believe are real even though we have never
  directly experienced them.

24
What is Political Science?

• We can think of science as a set of rules and
  processes we agree to use to generate agreement
  reality.
• Thus, the science in political science is the
  effort to develop a greater understanding of
  politics by conducting research openly and
  transparently, utilizing methods that will
  convince other political scientists to accept the
  results as accurate and correct.
• To create agreement reality regarding politics,
  all researchers must carefully document their
  research, fully explain their findings, disclose
  any of their known biases, and acknowledge any
  known weaknesses in their research.

25
Data Collection

• Examples of Types of Data
• Historical
• Economic
• Voting patterns
• Public opinion

26
Validation and Explanation

• Do the data support the causal assertion made by
  the hypotheses?
• Two types of causality
• Single-factor explanations
• Multicausal explanations

27
Grand Theory

• A final big question
• Does the validated hypothesis contribute to a
  grander political theory advancing our
  understanding of larger political phenomena?