Transcript History of Political Science

PS 372
Introduction
Practical Application
• 1.) As citizens in the US you are often called upon to
evaluate empirical research and theoretical arguments
about political phenomena. (Debates on Abortion / Death
Penalty; Election Polls in US; Events in other parts of the
world)
• 2.) As students you are often required to acquire
scientific knowledge yourself. (term papers for
undergraduate courses; research proposals for upperlevel seminars; research projects for most, if not all,
graduate programs.
• 3.) Useful skills that build a resume for future jobs.
DETAILS FOR: Job #05054--LHP
Job Title: Research Assistant (R01)
Status: Regular, Full-time
Center: Labor and Social Policy
Reports To: Center Director
JOB SUMMARY
Research assistants will assist senior researchers with quantitative research
projects related to welfare policy, poverty, employment, and/or immigration.
Responsibilities include compiling and analyzing data sets (using SAS and/or
Stata), running regression analyses and generating output tables, conducting
literature searches and reviews, and helping with other steps in the research
process.
EXPERIENCE
Requires excellent quantitative skills with experience in Stata, SAS, or similar
statistical analysis package. Prior research experience preferred. This position
requires detail-oriented, self-motivated individual who can work independently
as well as part of a team.
EDUCATION
BA/BS in a social science preferred.
Subfields in Political Science
• American Politics
– Political Institutions
– Behavior
• Comparative Politics
- European Politics
- African Politics
• International Relations
– IPE
– International Conflict/Security
• Political Theory
• Public Administration/Policy
History of Political Science
• Traditional
– Historical, Legalism, Philosophy, Descriptive
• Modern – “Behavioralism”
– Political science as “science”
– Facilitated by development of technology,
computers
Card Reader (1960’s-70’s)
Tape Unit (1960’s-70’s)
Methods of Knowing
• Ordinary Human Inquiry / Intuition
• Tradition
• Authority
• All Subjective
• Science can be seen as an attempt to
overcome the flaws of these alternatives
(Objective)
Science
• Effort to understand the world (explain
various phenomena) by systematically
examining causal relationships among
variables
• Scientific explanation must have both
logical and empirical support
Who Uses Science?
• Natural sciences – Biology, Chemistry,
Physics, Astronomy, etc.
• Social sciences – Psychology, Sociology,
Economics, Criminology, Anthropology,
Political Science
3 Criticisms of Social Science
• Absence of universal laws in social world
– Deterministic vs. Probabilistic relationships
• Social science research tends to test the
obvious
• Questions irrelevant /arcane
Important Research??
Is Political Science Arcane?
The Business of Social Research
• Where – universities (teaching vs.
research universities), research institutes,
government
• Who – people with Ph.D.’s (with help from
graduate students at universities)
• Outlets for research – conferences,
journals, books
The Business of Social Research
• Grants
– NSF
– Research Foundations
Government Institutions /
Organizations
PS Journals
• Discipline-wide: American Political Science
Review, Journal of Politics, American Journal
of Political Science
• Many specialized journals for different fields:
– American Politics - American Politics Quarterly, State Politics
and Policy Quarterly
– Comparative Politics - African Affairs, European Journal of
Political Research
– International Relations - Journal of Conflict Management
and Peace Science, International Organization
The Scientific Process
• Scientific process differs from other forms
of knowing in that it is based on well
defined principles for collecting, analyzing,
and evaluating information. Two paths to
the scientific process:
• Inductive vs Deductive Reasoning
The Scientific Process
• Inductive Explanation
– The process of reasoning from specific
observation to general theory
• Deductive Explanation
– The process of reasoning from general theory
to specific observation
• 1. Which of the following claims would be
best expressed by inductive reasoning?
• Your first quiz grade usually indicates how you will do in
the course.
• The final exam accounts for 30% of the course grade.
• Late papers will not be accepted.
• Political Science Research Methods is required reading
in your course.
• Which of the following claims would be
best expressed by deductive reasoning?
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Kentucky's population growth rate slowed last year.
Kentucky residents appreciate their good weather.
Kentucky residents are residents of the United States.
More cars are registered in Kentucky than in any other
state.
The Scientific Process
The Scientific Method
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Research Question
Theory and Hypotheses
Research Design
Operationalization (measurement)
Empirical Observation and Analysis
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Empirical Verification
– a statement must be proved true by means of
actual objective observation of phenomena
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Normative vs. non-normative
– normative: value-laden, evaluative, “ought” or
“should”, prescriptive
– Non-normative: factual, objective
- Scientific Knowledge is value-free, what might be in
the future and why and typically does not address
whether something is “good” or “bad”
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Transmissible
– Methods utilized must be explicitly detailed so
others can analyze and replicate the findings
– Why?
– Test conclusions
– Eliminate Bias
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Falsifiable
- A key and crucial aspect of science that
separates it from other forms of “knowledge”
- The assertions (hypotheses) can, in principle, be
rejected in the of contravening empirical
evidence
-
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• “Champions” until defeated / Cumulative
• Standing on the shoulders of giants
• Both in terms of substantive findings and
research methods
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Explanatory
– Answers “why” and “how” kinds of questions
– Provides a systematic, empirically verified understanding of why
a phenomenon occurs.
– A conclusion can be logically and empirically derived from a set
of general principles and specific starting conditions.
– In other words, when things of type X occur, they will be followed
by things of type Y.
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Parsimonious – All things being equal, the
simplest explanation is the best.
• Ockham’s Razor
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Deals with the Scientific Evaluation of
Dependent and Independent Variables
• Dependent – (Y)
• Independent – (X)
• Control – (X)
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Causal Relationship
– X causes Y (not coincidence)
– Example: fire trucks and fire, fertilizer causes
plant growth
Correlation Relationship (Probabilistic
Explanation)
- X is correlated with Y (we think its causal
but
cannot be certain)
- Example: Higher Levels of Economic
Development lead to Democratization
Spuriousness
• When we believe a phenomena (the dependent
variable – Y) is caused by a particular influence
(the independent variable – X) but it is in fact
caused by a third variable that correlates with
both.
1.)X  Y
2.)XY
3.)XY
Z
Why Correlation and Not Causation in Social
Science?
• Most of the time we cannot conduct
completely controlled experiments.
• Often we do not have enough
observations to definitively guarantee
Causation.
• Dealing with the vast variability of human
choice and action (Rational Choice and
Neurology as alternatives)
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Generalizable
- Applicable to many rather than just a few
cases.
* Empirical Generalization – summarizes the
relationship between two individual facts.
Distinguishing Characteristics of
Scientific Knowledge
• Validity
– External Validity – We say that a study has external validity when it can be
generalized from the specific experiment to the world as a whole. External
validity is about generalizabilty. We want to be able to generalize our findings
beyond specific individual cases.
– Internal Validity - We say that a study has internal validity when it not only has
reliable measures of independent and dependent variables BUT also a strong
justification that causally links the independent variables to the dependent
variables. At the same time, you are able to rule out extraneous (control)
variables, or alternative, often unanticipated, causes for your dependent
variables. Thus strong internal validity refers to the unambiguous assignment of
causes to effects. Internal validity is about causal control.
Important Note
• Commonsense knowledge, casual
observation, and superstition can be valid
and true but they are not scientific if they
are not empirically verified.