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Lecture notes Introduction to political science research
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Lecture notes Introduction to political science research
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Lecture 2Chapter 2
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Introduction
- The key question for political researchers is how we can develop knowledge about the
social world.
- We consider three different answers to these questions: those offered by positiviism,
scientific realism, and interpretivism.
- At the heart of the debate on this question is whether the methods that scientists have
developed to gain knowledge of the natural world can be used to produce reliable and
objective knowledge of the social world.
- As indicated, above, the terms ‘ontology’, ‘epistemology’, and ‘methodology’ relate to
fundamental issues concerning research practice and knowledge.
- Each research approach informs a different set of research practices because each is
based on different ontological, epistemological, and methodological premises. They
- They consequently differ in their conception of the nature (1) of the social world
(ontology), (2) of what sort of knowledge it is possible for us to acquire about this world
(epistemology), and (3) of how we go about acquiring this knowledge (methodology).
- Ontology is concerned with ‘what is’. Here, we are concerned with the nature of the
social world and the basic elements that make up this world. In political research,
ontological questions include whether the social world is fundamentally different from the
natural world; whether it is an objective reality that exists independently of us or is in
important respects subjectively created.
- Epistemology is concerned with what is knowable. What can we know about social
phenomena? What type or form of knowledge can we treat as legitimate knowledge
about the social world?
- Methodology is concerned with how we obtain knowledge. What are the means
- and methods that can provide us with legitimate knowledge of the political world? Box
2.1 shows how these key issues concerning knowledge are related.
- Two schools of thought answered yes to the fact that social sconces can develop
knowledge: positivism and scientific realism
1. Posivitism
- Why developed: credible and sound scientific information can be delivered
, - it maintains that researchers can arrive at factual, reliable, and objective by employing
the methods used in the natural sciences.
- Consequently, positivism plays a dual role in our field: for many, it provides a foundation
for research; for others, it stimulates the articulation of alternative methodological
positions.
- When: Positivism began to transform political research beginning in the 1950s and early
1960s. In what scholars in our field have called the ‘Behavioural Revolution’, researchers
- The key tenet of behaviouralism is that only observable behaviour may be studied.
- Critique: the field had become preoccupied with technique rather than substance, and
was failing to address significant problems. It was this concern that triggered a
‘post-behavioural revolution’.
- Some of these new directions moved the
- field towards a further realization of positivist and behaviouralist goals, such as the trend
in political research towards ‘positive political theory’ or rational choice theory.
1.1 Classical positivism
- The term was originally coined by the French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
as part of an argument about how human societies had gone about searching for the
truth.
- Three phases
1. Religion : systems of thought that offered a guide to making sense of the world.
2. Metaphysics: theological phase or stage, it then expanded its belief in things that cannot
be observed as, for instance, in its development of metaphysics.
3. final ‘positive’ stage in which the search for truth is characterized by the systematic
collection of observed facts.
- The term ‘sociology’, which refers to the scientific study of the social world, was also his
invention. Both terms expressed the same belief: that the social world could be
explained using similar methods to those used to explain natural phenomena.
- Assumption 1: no fundamental differences between the natural and the social sciences.
This claim is what is called ‘naturalism’. Note that naturalism presupposes an ontological
claim about the social world: if there is no difference between the social and natural
sciences, it must be because there is no fundamental difference between the social and
natural worlds…
- if the nature of the social world is no different from that of the natural world, then like the
natural world, there exists in the social world a mind-independent, objective reality that
exists independently of our knowledge of it. This related assumption, which we call
‘realism’, we will be discussing further on in this chapter.
- Assumption 2: empiricism. Empiricism is a philosophical theory of knowledge which
answers an epistemological question: how can we acquire knowledge of the world?
- The answer, according to empiricism, is that what we know of the world is limited to what
can be observed.
- Assumption 3: positivism is that the goal of social science is to explain and predict social
phenomena by means of laws.
, - According to classical positivist thought, laws can be discovered through systematic
investigation of observable events and happenings, and through a means or process of
reasoning called ‘induction’.
- Causation : David Hume said, ‘we cannot in any instance discover a power, necessary
connexion, or quality’ which renders one event ‘an infallible consequence of the other’
(1966: 51). Instead, what we observe is only the ‘constant conjunction’ of events. Recall
that, according to empiricism, we can only know what we can observe.
- According to this conception, then, causation is constituted by facts about empirical
regularities among observable variables.
- Consequently, positivists are concerned with observing empirical regularities rather than
in discovering causal mechanisms.
- Assumption 3: pursuit of knowledge of the social world through application of the
scientific methods used in the natural sciences it is possible to distinguish between facts
and values, and to treat ‘facts’ as independent of the observer and the observer’s
values.
1.2 Critiques that have been offered by non-positivists
- logical positivists argue that logical reasoning and mathematics should also be treated
as sources of knowledge, in addition to empiricism; that knowledge of the social world
comes, not just through what can be observed (empiricism), but also through logical
reasoning. (deduction and induction)
- The term ‘retroduction’ describes this interaction of induction and deduction in an
evolving, dynamic process of discovery and hypothesis formation.
- ‘mucking about’: we muck about in the dust of detail until some theoretical generalization
or relationship comes to mind that seems to offer an explanation of what our empirical
research has revealed; we then work to develop this theoretical notion until we hit a brick
wall and then we go back to sifting through our empirical research until some additional
inspiration enables us to return to, and further refine, our theoretical ideas.
- A second contribution of logical positivism, which we will discuss below, was to establish
‘verification’ (of statements or propositions) as the criterion for establishing truth claims,
and as a means of defining a clear line of division between science and metaphysics.
- Does Karl Popper reject the idea that we can use induction as a method of reasoning?
And verifiability as a concept
- Popper argues that no matter how many experiences we have of observing something,
this does not permit the deduction of a general statement of scientific knowledge.
- Karl popper points to David Hume’s limitation of generating laws: Hume argued that
since we cannot observe the universe at all times and in all places, but are only able to
observe particulars, we are not justified in deducing general laws based on inductive
evidence.
- Black swan story of David Hume: Popper, therefore, concludes that, rather than
endeavoring to discover laws through induction, what scientists should be doing is
testing theory deductively.
- Verification by Karl Popper: we cannot verify a hypothesis, our aim should be to falsify it.
, - Sum up: Logical positivists, however, argue that both induction, based on empiricism,
and deduction in the form of logic can be used to discover laws. However, the implication
of Popper’s critique of both classical and logical positivism is that it is only through
deduction that we can establish laws of social life as a basis for explanation.
- Hempel: we should be able to test a law by its ability to predict events.
- To sum up: the deductive-nomological model holds that an observed phenomenon is
- explained if it can be deduced from a law-like generalization.
- treating the generalization as a hypothesis, and testing it by its deductive consequences.
2. Scientific realism
- Similarities between positivism :
a. It accepts positivism’s ‘naturalist’ ontology which assumes that the social world is not
different from the natural world.
- However, while it accepts this tenet of positivism, it breaks distinctively with a second
tenet of positivism: empiricism.
- world—consists, not only of what we can directly observe but also of unobservable
elements: elements, that while unobservable, operate to produce real outcomes and that
should, therefore, be treated as real.
- According to scientific realism, we know that unobservable elements of social life exist
because we can observe their consequences.
- consequences. If unobservable elements of social life produce observable effects then
they can be treated as ‘real’. Ie: test gravity
- What do their conclusions look like?
A scientific realist explanation of social outcomes therefore entails providing an account of the
causal mechanism that brought about a given outcome, and developing empirically justified
theories and hypotheses about causal
Mechanisms.
- A causal mechanism can be defined as ‘the pathway or process by which an effect is
produced or a purpose is accomplished
- Charles Tilly identifies three sorts of causal mechanisms that operate in the social world:
1. Environmental: are ‘externally generated influences on conditions affecting social life’
2. Cognitive: ‘operate through alterations of individual and collective perception’
3. Relational: ‘alter connections among people, groups, and interpersonal networks’
2.1. What is the ontological status of macro-social mechanisms use to explain social
outcomes?
- what are the basic entities that make up the social world.
- Individualism and Holism
- On the other hand: Positivist and behavioural research treats individuals as the basic
unit of social analysis and consequently favour individual-level mechanisms to explain
outcomes. (purpose driven of individuals choices)
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