History of Political Science

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Subfields in Political Science

• American Politics
• Political Institutions
• Behavior
• Comparative Politics
• International Relations
• IPE
• International Conflict/Security
• Political Theory
• Public Administration/Policy

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History of Political Science

• Traditional
• Historical, Legalism, Philosophy
• Modern Behavioralism
• Political science as science
• Facilitated by development of computers

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Card Reader (1960s-70s)
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Tape Unit (1960s-70s)
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Methods of Knowing

• Ordinary Human Inquiry
• Tradition
• Authority
• Science can be seen as an attempt to overcome the
  flaws of these alternatives

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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

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Who Uses Science?

• Natural sciences Biology, Chemistry, Physics,
  Astronomy, etc.
• Social sciences Psychology, Sociology,
  Economics, Criminology, Anthropology, Political
  Science

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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

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Important Research??
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Is Political Science Arcane?
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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

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The Business of Social Research

• Grants
• NSF
• Research Foundations

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More on PS Journals

• Discipline-wide American Political Science
  Review, Journal of Politics, American Journal of
  Political Science
• Many specialized journals for different fields
• American Politics
• Comparative Politics
• International Relations

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The Scientific Process

• Inductive Explanation
• The process of reasoning from specific
  observation to general theory

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The Scientific Process

• Deductive Explanation
• The process of reasoning from general theory to
  specific observation

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The Scientific ProcessDeductive Method

• Research Question
• Theory and Hypotheses
• Research Design
• Operationalization (measurement)
• Empirical Observation and Analysis

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Distinguishing Characteristics of Scientific
Knowledge

• Empirical Verification
• a statement must be proved true by means of
  objective observation

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Distinguishing Characteristics of Scientific
Knowledge

• Normative vs. non-normative
• normative value-laden, evaluative, ought or
  should, prescriptive
• Non-normative factual, objective

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Distinguishing Characteristics of Scientific
Knowledge

• Transmissible
• Methods utilized must be explicitly detailed so
  others can analyze and replicate the findings

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Distinguishing Characteristics of Scientific
Knowledge

• Causal Relationship
• X causes Y (not coincidence)
• Example fire trucks and fire

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Distinguishing Characteristics of Scientific
Knowledge

• Explanatory
• Answers why kinds of questions

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Distinguishing Characteristics of Scientific
Knowledge

• Generalize
• We want to be able to generalize our findings
  beyond specific individual cases