POLSC 110 First Exam Reviewer 2.

The exam has an objective (memorization, knowledge of terminologies)

Content: and skills based (formulating hypothesis, etc)
1. House Rules
2. Coverage of Exam
3. Tips Ruth Grant (Political Theory, Political Science, and Politics)
4. Ruth Grant (Political Theory, Political Science, and Politics)
a. Contributors: Bab p. 577-595
5. Marsh and Stoker (Methods in Political Science)
. Contributors: Bab Major Arguments, Notes, and Tidbits:
6. Burnham, Gilland, Gran, Layton-Henry (Research Methods in Politics)  Berlin argues that political theory would never be a science because of
. Contributors: Joannah the questions it asks, in that normative questions are those that “remain
7. Casambre (The Discipline of Political Science: From Everyday obstinately philosophical” and that philosophical questions “do not
Narratives to Analysis) satisfy conditions required by an independent science, the principal
. Lecture 1 among which is that the path to their solution must be implicit in their
a. Lecture 2 formulations” (TLDR; abstract fluff isnt science!!!)
b. Lecture 3  So critics say: Political Theory isnt scientific research, its
c. Lecture 19 humanities research!
d. Lecture 20  Well then, first of all
e. Lecture 21 o a) What is Humanities Research? b) Must the study of politics
8. Notes on Sir Kraft’s Lecture Slides include research of this kind?/Can politics be adequately
understood without it?
a) What is Humanities research? - the argument vs it:
House Rules 1) “there are no accepted standards in judging interpretative
research” 2) it “neither adds to our store of knowledge nor
1. Feel free to share some material and inputs that can help everyone! :) increases our understanding of the world”
2. Please don’t delete other’s work. If something needs tweaking, kindly  But Grant argues three things against these!
highlight and comment it instead 1. “The essential mission of the humanities is not research, but
3. Feel free to edit the font/style to whatever fits best for a reviewer hehe education.” (hence, “researcher” vs. “scholar”) so, “an
education in the humanities is not so much about acquiring
knowledge of this kind as it is about acquiring humility in the
Coverage of Exam face of your own ignorance”
2. “The “hard” sciences and the social sciences are “softer” than
1. Political science as a discipline they seem” and that “uncertainty is inevitable even in the
2. What is political analysis formal sciences”
3. Thinking politics systematically: indicators, variables, hypothesis 3. Humanities research is “integrally related to the aims and limits
4. Conceptualizing a topic of humanistic inquiry” since it asks questions that “cannot be
5. Research process, research question, conceptual framework, theory and certain and complete” aka normative questions
methods  Political theory has “never divorced itself from knowledge of empirical
reality and argumentation on the basis of historical evidence”
 Science “cannot escape normative considerations, if only because truth
Tips itself is a value”
 So instead of humanities = values and science = facts, how abt hum =
1. Know the authors of the passages meaning and significance & science = cause and effect
 o Which is why the methods are interpretative and historical and
the disagreement and uncertainty are not arbitrary either
because they reflect historical and epistemological realities.
o “Meaning and significance refer to relations that vary through
time, and questions of meaning and significance are thus deeply
historical.” “It forces us to ask whether where we stand today
truly represents progress.”
 “The primary concerns of humanistic research are matters of judgment”
hence the needs for defense of hum research-- moral judgment is framed
as an either or between: moral absolutism vs relativism (both of which
are problematic bc uniformity? Shit is WACK sis. arguing that some
stuff are okay bc its “yours”/”ours”? Still WACK, hun.)
o But here’s the tea: even if both/none are right, the question still
remains: should something happen, which values/perspectives
do we give more importance to?
 Even hotter tea: there is a fine line in marrying un/certainty-- “There are
limits to the extent and the certainty of what human beings can know.
Nonetheless, we are able to make reasonable judgments and proceed.”
 “Believing judgment to be without rational foundation and believing
questions concerning judgment to be beyond the scope of legitimate
inquiry, the gap between intellectual activity and the practice of living
grows.” (TLDR; to live is to ask how to)
 It also means being critical! Studying the human experience allows us to
be critical because we know there are alternatives. Conseq, it also means
reconceptualization!
 In a nutshell: since hum asks different questions, it therefore uses
different standards!
 BUT WHY DO WE NEED HUM IN STUDYING POLITICAL
PHENOMENA?
1. “In deciding what to do, people always understand
themselves as acting for a reason.” (Politics -> Human
Deed -> Understanding judgment)
2. “Political behavior is an expression of human purposes
and intentions” as such, “There is a limit to what
general causal laws can explain”
3. Because people disagree, “Political theory develops
diagnostic tools to identify and understand what sort of
political disagreement is involved”
 Because of this, politics and political theory cannot be separated!
o Critics/H8ers: “Speech happens, they suggest, but only deeds
matter, and the former has no appreciable effect on the latter”
 BUT INTENT STILL MATTERS! Questions of
meaning and purpose allow us to distinguish between
those that act the same but want different goals! To
study politics only in the realm of behavior is myopic!
 Another hot tea: “causal relations cannot be adequately explained
without consideration of meaning. But the reverse is also true. The
significance of something may well include its causal impact. Political
theory as an enterprise assumes that interpretations, conceptual regimes,
judgments of significance, and ideas of all kinds are themselves both
causes and effects.”
o Note: “both causes and effects” so arguably, Pol theory also has
causal facets! Issa science too, sis! Isaiah Berlin found
DECEASED and FLOATING in an estero in Urdaneta,
Pangasinan!
 “In other words, the study of politics needs both to seek general laws to
explain the causes of political behavior and to develop interpretations of
the meaning and significance of political events and conceptual regimes
to inform evaluative judgments of them. Political studies has both
scientific and humanistic aims.”
 “The biggest mistake is to conclude that we cannot ask the question
unless we can guarantee knowledge of the answer.”
o Rejecting what can be learned from research in political theory
because of its messy uncertainties and disagreements, is treating
a problem of blurred vision by putting out one eye.
Nutshell digest: Political Theory is important! The Normative becomes the
reason the science is even significant in the first place! The science allows the
normative to be able to be rooted in reality! Hell, the normative and the scientific
are both, in a sense, not the other side of the coin but are complementary things
whose philosophies overlap! Like different colored gummy bears-- they have
different flavors, but they’re still gummy bears!!!
Joannah’s notes:
 Andrew Delbanco - humanities - religion
 Kurt Godel’s proof showed that even math can be uncertain too
“impossible to deduce the principles of even elementary arithmetic from
a finite set of axioms or to establish the logical consistency of many
deductive systems”
 Mistake to restrict to causal effects only cos:
 Ppl act for reason
 Manifestation of human behavior
 Reasonable ppl disagree
 Knowledge may not be enuf
Marsh and Stoker (Methods in Political Science)
p. 1-14
Bab’s Notes:
Major arguments, Notes, and Tidbits:
 “When trying to understand something as complex, contingent and
chaotic as politics can be, it is not surprising that academics have
developed a great variety of approaches.” and that “diversity should be a
cause of celebration rather than concern.”
o 'empirical research can be guided by normative theory; and
normative theory can be improved by empirical research'.
(Baubock, 2008)
 “there is a greater scope for a dialogue between
normative theory and the other approaches we identify
than is often recognized.”
 WHAT IS POLITICS? WHAT IS IT THAT POLITICAL SCIENTISTS
STUDY?
o What is the nature of the political world? Two broad
approaches (Leftwich, 1984; Hay, 2002):
1. “The field of study by reference to an
arena/particular set of institutions (usually
behavioralists, rational choice theorists,
institutionalists)
2. “A social process that can be observed in a
variety of settings” “More than gov’t, is the
uneven distribution of power in society, how
the struggle over power is conducted, its
impact on creation and distribution of
resources, life-chances, and well-being”
(usually Feminism, Constructivism, Marxism)
o Yet: both arenas and process
definition have their value!
 A broad consensus could be built around a definition of politics
along the lines: “the constrained use of power” (Goodin and
Klingeman, 1996)
o “Politics enables individuals or groups to do some
things that they would not otherwise be able to do and
it also constrains individuals or groups from doing
what it is they would otherwise do.”
 WHAT IS A SCIENTIFIC APPROACH TO POLITICS?
o “Political science is science in the sense that it offers
ordered knowledge based on systematic enquiry.” and
“is about the production of systematic knowledge about
the political.”
o Epistemology - “what we know about the world and
how we can know it” (Furlong and Marsh). There are
various forms of it:
 Foundationalists - “a real world exists
independently of our knowledge of it, but can
be discovered”
 Positivism - “exploring causal
relationships developing
explanatory/predictive models” (like
natural sciences)
o Mostly used by behavioralist
and rational choice
approaches
 Realism - “see explanation of reality
as often lying in deep structures that
cannot be directly observed.”
 Anti-Foundationalists - Constructivists,
Interpretivists, PoMoists
 Can be used by modern behavioralists
o “It is never possible, he argues, to definitively establish
that a particular causal relationship exists but it is
possible to determine how far a particular set of
empirical observations is consistent with a specific
proposition about a cause and effect relationship.”
(Sanders)
 “Political science has become more diverse and more
cosmopolitan in character”
o “There is a de facto pluralist view of the nature of
political science endeavour.”
 2 points by Marsh and Stoker:
1. “There is a need to recognize just how
considerable is the variety of political science
at the beginning of the twenty-first century.”
2. “The key challenge is not to launch a
campaign for unity but to argue for diversity to
be combined with dialogue.”
 “What is the scope of political studies and whether it can claim the label
of science? We conclude that political scientists are divided on these
issues but that there is scope for identifying some common ground. At
the moment, we argue that we should embrace the diversity within the
field.”
  Swedish polsc influenced by: Germany -> USA -> Anglo
Joannah’s additional notes: American traditions
 Approaches to defining political  Canadian polsc - strong
 Institutions: behavioralism, rational choice, institutional  Headquarters of the Intl Political Science Association
 Social process: constructivist, feminism, marxist  Australia - strong
 Political ‘science’
 Application of natural sciences methodology ‘leads to the
Burnham, Gilland, Gran, Layton-Henry (Research Methods in Politics) development of ‘laws’ with explanatory and predictive power’
(Somit and Tanenhaus)
Chapter 1: The Discipline of Politics, p. 9-37  Context in the USA
 Growing immigration
Overview:  Growing urban middle class
I.Development of the Discipline  Political scientists were called upon for reforms
II.Approaches to Research  Schools with Polsc
III.Relationship Between Ontology, Epistemology, an Methodology  LSE, Oxford, Cambridge

Development of the Discipline “The diverse traditions of political science” Approaches to Research ‘dominant paradigms’
 Problem: Political science had a “lack of distinct core” as a discipline  Behavioralism
 Neo-Institutionalism gave a clearer disciplinary identity - uses  Dominant in 50s-60s
the framework of patterns, routine, and rules (Crouch 2005, p.2)  Formed out of discontent with old-institutionalism
 Political science was strongly developed in the USA.  Systematic (mass surveys and sampling techniques)
 80s - 80% of world’s political scientists were Americans  Reaction against behavioralism
 American Political Science Association (APSA) - 7,000  Failed with goals
delegates  Undue emphasis on process
 American contributions: arguments for European integration  Ideologies penetrated polsc
(Wallace), theories in IR (Smith)  Institutionalism
 Early developments in US  Institutions do matter (March and Olsen)
 20s - ‘protobehavioral revolution’ - ‘reacting against the  New Institutionalism
formal-legal-historical approach’ (Monroe)  Normative Institutionalism
 Other European countries:  Historical institutionalism
 France - “political science played played a very modest part in  Rational choice institutionalism
its teaching… law and history, as well as economics dominated  Rational/Public Choice
the syllabus” (Hayward)  Psychology of decision making (Monroe)
 Similar in Italy  Contributions: Down’s Median Voter Theorem
 Spain - restricted political scientists because of the threat to the  Construtivism
regime, sociology was more welcomed (Clifton)  IR - challenge to realism
 Greece - no polsc depts before the fall of the Colonels’ regime  3 Checks for controlled eclecticism
in 1974 (Kakepaki and Sotiropoulos)  Parsimony
 Germany - dominance of abstract and theoretical traditions over  Commensurability
empirical study of politics (Saalfeld)  Coherence
 Belgium - political science is split on linguistic lines
 Denmark - 1st polsc dept 1959 ‘Political studies or science: methodological considerations’
 Positivism (variant of Empiricism) - knowledge is gained from human
sense experience (inductive reasoning)
  Objective
 Responses:
 Neo Positivism
Casambre
 Conventionalism
 Critical realism Lecture 3: Weberian Concepts, p. 17-22

 Legitimacy, bureaucracy, state

Casambre (The Discipline of Political Science: From Everyday Narratives to  Bases of legitimacy
Analysis)  Traditional
 Charismatic
Lecture 1: Everyday Life and Political Analysis, p. 1-9  Affectual attitudes
 Belief in absolute value
 Science - knowledge  Legal
 Rigour in methodology  “Voluntary consent”
 Experiment - cause and effect  Bureaucracy
 Discipline - set of practices accepted by community  State - monopoly of legitimate use of force, or the threat to use force
 Naming
 Generalization - process of generating larger name
 Conceptualization - Giving a name to a generalization, named
ideas or mental constructs Casambre
 Adequacy - correctness Lecture 19: Research in Political Science, p. 174-180
 Concept formation: essential contestability of concepts and  Science model (positivist)
concept stretching  Theory, hypothesis, empirical observations, design
 Sense to science  Ontology: objective view of reality
 Empiricism  Epistemology: empirisist, logical positivist (deductive analysis)
 Sense - decaying sense - memory - experience - prudence -  Interpretative/Constructivist
sapience  Ontology: subjectivity of reality, socially constructed
 Thought - train of thought - seek all possible effects and causes  Epistemology: intersubjectivity
(expressed thru speech)
 Summary:
 Sense experience -> naming of sense -> memory and Casambre
experience -> speech -> reasoning -> science (knowledge of
consequences of names) Lecture 20: Asking a Research Question, p. 181-188

Casambre  RRL - Bibliography

 Theoretical insights - conceptual framework
Lecture 2: Concepts, p. 10-16  Methodological insights - research design/methodology
 Hypothesis - specific objectives
 Dimensions of concept names:  Allison and Zelikow ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ study:
 Extension  Models:
 Intension  Rational Actor
 Sartori: concepts are “data containers”  Organizational behavior
 Operationalization: procedure to gather data  Government politics
Casambre
Lecture 21: Finding Answers in Research, p. 189-198
 Data collection and analysis
 Data:
 Nominal - lambda test of correlation
 Ordinal - gamma test, chi square test of significance (also for
nominal)
 Interval - regression
 Research designs
 Case study
 Group comparison
 Before after design
 Quasi experimental design
 Experimental design
 Analyses
 Statistical
 Multivariate
 Interpretivist research - text/discourse analysis
 Plausible narrative -quali
 Coding of words/phrases - quanti
 Process tracing