Concepts and Paradigms of IR research- Theory and methods in Political Science

Concepts and Paradigms of IR research: Theory and methods in

Political Science

By

Dr. Aaron T. Walter

Introduction

The well-written, organized, and important edition of

Theories and Methods of Political Science by Gerry Stoker

and David Marsh achieve their aim to provide an introduction

to the way that political scientists carry out their

studies. Moreover, the main approaches to political science

are presented. From explanations on epistemology and

ontology in the six different approaches to political

science to the broad ways of approaching political science

the attitudes, understandings and practices are offered for

the scholar and student to gain insight. The reader found

the contributing authors knowledgeable and the approaches

that have been detailed more than sufficient, however for

the purposes of this position paper disagreement is found on

Messrs Stoker and Marsh argument that “political science

should be interested not only in understanding ‘what is’; it

should also be concerned with the normative issues of ‘what

should be’.” This paper postulates that such a concern

misses the main point. Inside an idea is presented that

trough an investigation of behaviouralism, normative theory

and institutions and ideas a position that political science

is the most formidable when from the understanding of what

is.

1. A discipline of diversity

Political science can best be argued as a discipline of

diversity. As Stocker and Marsh state, “…a pluralism of

method and approach out there that should not be denied but

it should not be isolative but rather interactive. It should

be eclectic and synergistic, (Stocker & Marsh, 2002)“ in

short a behavioural approach as actions from individuals and

not institutions (Guy, 2000) such as legislatives,

executives and judiciaries explain the relation to the

political system.

Since, political science deals with the theory and practice

of politics as well as the analysis of political behavior

and political systems the relationships that form political

events and conditions are what is revealed general

principles are able to be constructed about the way the

world of politics work (UNC,1999). Political Science is a

discipline of diversity due to its interaction with other

fields from economics, international relations, psychology,

law, and political theory to name a few. Political Science

is very often separated into three sub-disciplines of

distinct nature. Political Philosophy, International

Relations, and Comparative Politics. As to the first sub-

discipline, reasoning for an absolute normative government,

laws, and other distinctive characteristics is the drive in

political philosophy scholarship. Classical political

philosophy is primarily defined by a concern for Helenic and

Enlightenment thought, though political scientists use

modernity and terminology such as structure that is close to

that of sociologists. International Relations looks to the

reciprocal action or influence between nation states,

intergovernmental and transnational organizations, while

Comparative Politics compares the varying types of

legislatures, political actors and constitutions from an

intrastate perspective. Sub-discipline diversity is not only

what Political science incorporates. The field is also

methodologically diverse.

Political science appropriates many methods from social

research, including rational choice theory, behavioral,

interpretivisim, positivism, structuralism,

poststructuralism, realism, institutionalism, and pluralism.

In brief,

Rational choice theory: The central conception to some modern

political science where the ‘idea’ of rationality is

different from the colloquial and philosophical uses.

Rational choice theory employs a specific and narrower

definition of rationality which means that a person acts as

if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action that

maximizes personal advantage and as such practitioners of

said theory will not investigate the origins, nature, or

claim of human motivation, but rather observe the

inexplicable wants in specific social or economic

environments. As Hugh Ward states, “rational choice is an

indispensable part of the toolkit of a political phenomena,“

(Stocker and Marsh, 2002).

Behavioralism: an approach within the field of political

science that attempts to provide an objective, quantified

approach to explaining and predicting political behavior

(Walton, 1985). Looking in-depth at the individual and

choices.

Interpretivism: as a sociological interpretivism related to

antipositivism following Max Weber stressing the rejection

by academics of empiricism and the scientific method.

Reality cannot be expressed without concepts.

Positivism: The opposite to interpretivism since this method

refers to a set of epistemological perspectives and

philosophies of science that postulate that the scientific

method is the best approach to uncovering the processes of

human events.

Structuralism: It is the rejection of the concept of human

freedom and choice and instead on the way that human

behavior is determined by various structures.

Poststructuralism: Best known by one of its main proponents, the

French scholar Michel Foucault, the theory is a collection

of radical philosophies critical of dominate Western culture

and norms. Especially popular during the 1960s were student

and worker protests were seen in the West the idea was to

challenge the assumed norms. To this end, founding knowledge

either by experience or systematic structures was not

possible. The ability to use diverse perspectives to create

a multifaceted interpretation and analyzing meanings was key

to understanding. This premise is in conflict with

structuralism as an intellectual movement studying the

underlying structures within culture emphasizing logic and

the scientific nature of its results.

Realism: A dominant school within international relations

where national interest and security is prioritized over

ideology and moral concerns. This also includes social

reconstructions and is subdivided into seven parts. In

brief, classical realism postulates that man pushes states

and individuals to act, meaning interest over ideology.

Defensive realism discusses security concerns in connection

to anarchy. Liberal realism, which will be, discussed more

in depth in proceeding paragraphs postulates about a society

of states.

Institutionalism: a group of differing theories which have in

common their focus on the social and organizational orders,

mechanism and structures within the field.

Pluralism: Within political philosophy an acknowledgement of a

diverse political system while when applied to a political

theory political power in society does not lie with the

electorate but distributed among a wide number of groups.

Moreover, such techniques and methods relate to the kind of

inquiries sought from historical documents and official

records, but as academicians survey research, statistical

analysis, case studies and journal articles assist. As J.

Stoner writes, “as a discipline, political science, possible

like the social sciences as a whole, lives on the fault line

between the two cultures in the academy, the sciences and

the humanities,” (Stoner, 2008). And it is on this point

that human behavior is so important to the study of

Political science.

Observations of human behavior in all aspects of politics

are clearly the aim of the study of the field. Controlled

environments are sought after, but are challenging to

reproduce and so they are accomplished through experimental

methods (Druckman, 2010). Also, historically political

scientists have observed institutions and political elites

in an effort to identity patterns, generalizations and build

theories. Though this is the broad understanding, the

excitement is found in the details. Beginning in the 1950s

and 1960s behaviouralism assumed a vital position in the

field of political science that carried the tradition of its

philosophical origins and logical positivism. From these

roots have come the core characteristics such as the use of

relevant empirical evidence rather than illustrative

supporting examples and falsifiability.

As a social science, political scientists can observe human

actors who make conscious choices unlike non-human

organisms. Despite the complexities, contemporary political

science has progressed utilizing several methods and

theoretical approaches to politics with methodological

pluralism as a defining feature with growth of both

normative and positive political science. One such approach

is that of the international political economy.

1.1 International political economy

While an academic disciple within social sciences where

international relations is the focus along with political

economy it is interdisciplinary drawing scholars from

sociology, history, and cultural studies. Within the study

of the international political economy the knowledge sought

and disseminated is concerned with political forces and how

such forces (states, institutions, people) shape economic

interaction of collective markets and the effects on

political structures and outcomes. As such, scholars within

this disciple are at the forefront of research and debate on

globalization. However, within the field, scholars are

grouped in three categories, liberal, realist, and Marxist.

In brief,

The 'liberal' view believes in freedom for private powers at

the expense of public power (government). Markets, free from

the distortions caused by government controls and

regulation, will naturally harmonize demand and supply of

scarce resources resulting in the best possible world for

populations at large.

The 'realist' view (formerly commonly labeled "nationalist")

accepts the power of free markets to deliver favorable

outcomes, but holds that optimum conditions are generally

obtained with moderately strong public power exerting some

regulatory control.

The 'Marxist' view believes that only robust application of

strong public power can check innate tendencies for private

power to benefit elites at the expense of populations at

large.

The 'constructivist' view assumes that the domain of

international economic interactions is not value-free, and

that economic and political identities, in addition to

material interests, are significant determinants of economic

action.

Within the discipline there are the American and British

schools of intellectual and theoretical application.

Regardless of differing standards, both offer benefits to

the scholar and casual reader. On this point an argument can

be made that within the worldviews of international

relations much can be learned.

2. Political Science Is

A faction of political science calling themselves the

perestroika movement that within the past decade has strived

for methodological pluralism and a heightened awareness of

people outside the discipline in fact those peoples

relevance as opposed to the typical dominance of

quantitative and methodology in the field (Schram and

Caterino, 2006). The argument for such a movement is to

prevent poor quality of scholarship and potential academic

isolation postulated by Bent Flyvbjerg in his 2001 book

Making Social Science Matter and others who have called upon

the American political science community to change (Monroe,

2005). Partly, this movement was a reaction to the perceived

over-use of the science in the field such as that within

game theory.

The use of game theory in an attempt to generate more

analysis was used increasingly more and more in the 1960s

and 1970s as research that borrowed both theory and methods

from economics and political institutional study within the

context of rational choice (Cohan, 1999) though quantitative

methods were criticized even by political scientists.

However, Kenneth R. Mladenka, political scientist at Texas

A&M University brought acceptance of urban studies in an

attempt to show how, “local settings where global, national,

and voting behavior outcomes happen at street level where

day-to-day lives are affected,” (Mladenka, 1994). David

Easton advocated this idea in contemporary political

science.

According to him, what behavioralism sought after was broad

themes such as analytic and general and explanatory rather

than substantive, particular and ethical. In doing so

political behavior is evaluated without ethical

considerations. Rodger Beehler cites this as “their

insistence on distinguishing between facts and values” (Baer

et al. (eds), 1991). This was the key to the whole

Behavioralist revolution.

Behavioralists used strict methodology and empirical

research to validate their study as a social science and it

is this precise reason that was not only innovative, since

it altered the attitude of the purpose of inquiry, but since

research supported by verifiable facts could occur a new

‘science’ within the study of politics could be recognized,

countering the dispute over the term as well as critique

that qualitative and normative study lacked the necessary

scientific method. Moreover, behavioralism challenged both

realist and liberal approaches since both were not based

upon fact (Dahl, 1961). Political behavior is better

understood after the methods such as sampling, interviewing,

scoring and scaling as well as statistical analysis is

followed. This is all done in an attempt to quantify and

explain the influences defining individual views on

politics, participation and ideology. In fact, David Sanders

goes as far as to state, “There is nothing intrinstic in

behavioralism’s epistemological position, however, that

requires quantification. On the contrary, quantitative and

qualitative forms of empirical analysis are equally

acceptable to behavioural researchers. What matters for them

is not whether evidence is qualitative or quantitative but

(a) that it is used to evaluate theoretical propositions,

and (b) that it is employed systematically rather than

illustratively (Sanders, 49).

Furthermore, in support of the idea of diversity within the

field of political science as well as trying to better

define what political science is, it should be stressed that

the interdependence of all social life has moved closer in

defining its relationship with political science as a

discipline highlighting the other disciplines such as

sociology, economists, history, psychology, even statistics,

to name a few (Farr, 1993). Thus, the scientific method is

used with a testable hypotheses and empirical verification.

Again, as Sanders writes in his defense of behaviorism

regarding social change, “only start to be interesting to

behavioralists when they: (a) specify the empirical

referents that are used in order to make the judgement that

profound change is indeed taking place; and (b) provide the

empirical evidence which shows that these referents are

indeed changing in the specific direction. Behavioralism is

entirely neutral as to what the referents in any theory

should be; this is the domain of the social theorist. To

behavioralists, however, a social theory without clear

empirical referents is nothing more than mere assertion,

(Sanders, 55). Moreover, for modern behavioralists the

notion that theory and observation are independent is

rejected. So named post-bahavioralists now accept the

relativist view that what is obsereved is in part a

consequence of the theoretical position that the analyst

adopts in the first place.

Within the social sciences and economics using the

scientific method is not strange, in fact an argument may be

made that such a method assists both in their own normative

theories.

2.2 Content of political science is helped by normative

political theory

There is strong evidence to support the argument that

normative political theory helps the field of political

science. Though broadly applied to philosophy it is also,

within the sociological context, either shared values or

institutions that structural functionalists regard as

constitutive. In effect, socialization acts as

encouragement for social activity and value. Moreover,

normative values also apply to economics when the

question of what kind of economic policies should be

pursued to achieve the valued economic outcome. Both have

relations with politics and from that basis one can look

to political philosophy.

Though often considered a branch of political science it

may also be treated as interdisciplinary. However, at its

core, political philosophy often refers to the general

view political belief or attitude about politics

(Hampton, 1997). In this effort, analysis can be through

the perspectives of epistemology for example, giving

insight into the various aspects of the origin of the

state, institutions and laws through the knowledge and

value aspects of politics. A good example of rigorous

theorising and systematic empirical testing is Paul

Whiteley and Patrick Seyd’s analysis of party activism in

the UK. From this analysis comes the general incentives

model, which has three components: individual benefits,

collective benefits, and individual costs. From this

comes the rather instructive statement by Seve Buckler,

“all true knowledge comes from empirical experience,

statement of value could not be said to be in any sense

expressions of knowledge and were only matters of

convention” (Buckler, 173). To this point, and broadly

where normative politics is assisted along the way of

gaining knowledge is through logical positivism.

2.3 Normative theory

Should also be included with study of political science

since it deals with the main normative issue, ‘what

should be’. Therefore, normative is contrasted with

positive or descriptive, explanatory theories, for

normative theory use factual statements describing

reality. Though considered rather common today within

scholarly circles, it was only as early as the eighteenth

century that philosophers began to take notice of the

normative and descriptive statements and thinking thanks

to David Hume.

Since then peoples and cultures (individuals and

societies) have to various degrees defined what is

considered appropriate by their normative standards of

ethics, belief, emotion and action being the basis of

much political discourse too. As such, the idea of

positivism is connected to normative theory. This mainly

though has its roots within philosophy.

Positivism, based upon positive verification and

experience asserts that this is the only authentic

knowledge then. Based upon the logical extension of

Enlightenment thinkers such as Auguste Comte, the

scientific method would replace metaphysics in the

history of thought observing a circular dependence of

theory and observation in science. Such an explanation

was rejected by thinkers such as Max Weber though in the

early twentieth century a descendant of Comte’s basic

thesis was formed, logical positivism.

Logical positivists also reject metaphysical speculation

and attempt to reduce statements and propositions to

unalterated logic. This ‘branch’ grew to be one of the

dominant schools within Anglo-American philosophy, though

Karl Popper have been highly influential postpositivists

in critiquing this approach. Still, within the social

sciences psychology has been affected by the positivist

movement in the development of behavioralism and

operationalism and in economics, methodological

assumptions are emulated by practising researchers.

Likewise, in jurisprudence, the authority of human

political structures and rejection of natural law. T.D.

Weldon applied a method approach in his understanding of

normative theory. According to him and his work, the

discipline was ever more considered as political science,

centring upon behavioral investigations into political

conduct. As such there is an interpretation rather than

causal explanation. To this point, explanatory approaches

were marginalized and this was the main cause of Alasdair

MacIntyre argument that “social circumstances under which

certain kinds of reasons and the rules to which they

refer become operative in determining action. This may

also mean looking for rules that might operate without

the conscious acknowledgement of actors,” (Buckler, 180).

In doing so the social theorist is able to look at

factors such as ideology and distinguish controlled and

constrained cases within the social structure.

Through scepticism of theology and metaphysics and

grounded in observable facts, most logical positivists

took the view that all knowledge is based on logical

inference and what is observed. To be put another way,

logical positivists are best known for their

verifiability criterion of meaning. In one of its earlier

and stronger formulations, this is the doctrine that a

proposition is capable of achieving knowledge only if

there is a finite procedure for conclusively determining

whether it is true or not. An intended consequence of

this view, for most logical positivists is that

metaphysical, theological, and ethical statements fall

short of this criterion. They distinguished cognitive

from other varieties of meaningfulness (e.g. emotive,

expressive, figurative), and most authors concede that

the non-cognitive statements of the history of philosophy

possess some other kind of meaningfulness. The positive

characterization of cognitive meaningfulness varies from

author to author. It has been described as the property

of having a ‘truth value’ corresponding to a possible

state of affairs, in relation to political science.

Another characteristic feature of logical positivism is the

commitment to what generally known as unification in the

science that is, the development of a common language in

which all scientific propositions can be expressed. The

adequacy of proposals or fragments of proposals for such a

language was often asserted on the basis of various

"reductions" or "explications" of the terms of one special

science the terms of another, putatively more fundamental

one. Sometimes these reductions took the form of set-

theoretic manipulations of a handful of logically primitive

concepts; sometimes these reductions took the form of

allegedly analytic deductive relationships.

Early critics of logical positivism held the belief that the

theory’s fundamental tenets could not themselves be

formulated in a way that was clearly consistent. For

example, the verifiability criterion did in fact, not seem

verifiable; but neither was it simply a logical truth since

it had implications for the practice of science and the

empirical truth of other statements. Another problem was

regarding universal claims. The biggest critic was Karl

Popper.

In his own work, The Logic of Scientific Discovery he argued that the

positivists criterion of verifiability was too strong a

criterion for science, and should be replaced by one of

falsifiability. For Popper, falsifiability was a better

criterion because it did not invite the philosophical

problems inherent in verifying an induction, and it allowed

statements from the physical sciences which seemed

scientific but which did not meet the verification

criterion.

Popper's concern was not with distinguishing meaningful from

meaningless statements, but distinguishing scientific from

metaphysical statements. Unlike the positivists, he did not

hold that metaphysical statements must be meaningless; he

also held that a statement which was "metaphysical" and

unfalsifiable in one century could, in another century, be

developed into falsifiable theories that have the

metaphysical views as a consequence, and thus become

scientific.

Universal claims could apparently never be verified: How can

you tell for example that all ravens are black, unless you've

hunted down every raven, including those in the past and

future? This led to a great deal of work on induction,

probability, and confirmation, which combined verification

and falsification.

With such criticism there also were responses from logical

positivists. To the first, positivists said that logical

positivism was a philosophy of science and to the second

criticism, in fact a theory of language and mathematical

logic were created. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno took

this a step further linking modern ideology with positivism

state that , “positivism not just as a philosophical

movement but as a worldview, has risen to become a dominant

ideology,” (Buckler, 182). In effect a vision presupposed in

modern positivist social science corresponding with real

experience, governed by the laws of commodity and capital

market, but what Horkheimer and Adorno do not satisfactory

resolve is reconciling people to the current system by

eliminating objective dynamic of social change.

In contemporary social science, strong accounts of

positivism have long since fallen out of favor.

Practitioners of positivism nowadays acknowledge in far

greater detail the bias used by the observer as well as

structural limitations. Modern positivists generally

eschew metaphysical concerns in favor of methodological

debates concerning clarity that are usually equated with

quantitative research carrying no explicit theoretical or

philosophical commitments. From this research sprung

institutionalization.

This kind of sociology often contains large-scale survey

studies and developed statistical techniques for

analyzing them, leading to abstract statements that

generalize from segregated hypothesis and empirical

regularities rather than starting with an abstract idea

of a social whole (Boudon, 1991). Other new movements,

such as critical realism have emerged to reconcile the

overarching aims of social science with various so-called

'postmodern' critiques.

Within the discipline of positivism no fewer than twelve

distinct epistemologies are referred to as such. Since a

large number came into existence in opposition to older

forms of positivism the term is generally not applied.

Moreover, antipositivist criticism has also become broad

with many philosophies rejecting outright the

scientifically based social epistemology while others

attempt to modify to reflect developments in twentieth

century philosophy. As such, an argument can be made that

within the field of political science, the discipline of

positivism is too fragmented and as such too weak.

2.4 Too weak to help

Political science is best at understanding ‘what is’ in

the arena of politics and scholarly understanding. As

such positivism as a normative theory is too weak to

assist due in part to its criticism of its universalism,

the idea that relationships and actions between people

can explain processes.

In the beginning of the twentieth century antipositivism

was introduced, proposing that research should

concentrate on human cultural norms and values, viewing

them from a subjective perspective. The casual

relationships gained were in Max Weber’s opinion part of

what could be described as a science. Moreover, Weber

regard sociology as a study of social action where

critical analysis may be used. Also during this period,

Karl Marx drew upon historical materialism and critical

analysis rather than positivism and other scholars have

used Weber and Marx as part of the general tradition in

the study of social action in culture and politics

positivism and postpositivist aims with various so-called

postmodern perspectives in acquiring knowledge stayed

relevant in showing social progress through science and

technology, but it has been eclipsed by new movements

such as critical realism.

Critical theorists, such as Max Horkheimer, criticized

the classic formulation on two grounds. First, a false

representation of human social action was claimed. In

doing so, positivism failed to appreciate the extent to

which social facts were products of social and historical

mediated human consciousness. In effect, positivism

ignored the observer in social reality and thereby failed

to consider historical and social conditions affecting

the representation of social ideas. The idea postulated

by positivism of a social reality objectively and

independently represented was false. Second, Horkheimer

argued that critical theory possessed a reflexive element

that helped challenge and possibly change the status quo,

while the social reality produced by positivism helped

support the status quo that was inherently and

artificially conservative. Postpositivisms development

addressed these critiques. As a philosophy

epistemological commitments have become relaxed and as

such the scientific project is not dismissed outright,

but postpositivists seek to transform and amend it,

though the exact extent of their affinity for science

varies vastly. For example, some postpositivists accept

the critique that observation is always value-laden, but

argue that the best values to adopt for sociological

observation are those of science (Bullock and Trombley,

1999) skepticism, rigor and modesty. Just as some

critical theorists see their position as a moral

commitment to egalitarian values, these postpositivists

see their methods as driven by a moral commitment to

these scientific values. Such scholars may see themselves

as either positivists or antipositivists.

Positivism has also come under fire on religious and

philosophical grounds, whose proponents assert that truth

begins in sense experience, but does not end there.

Positivism fails to prove that there are not abstract ideas,

laws, and principles, beyond particular observable facts and

relationships and necessary principles, or that we cannot

know them. Nor does it prove that material and corporeal

things constitute the whole order of existing beings, and

that our knowledge is limited to them. According to

positivism, abstract concepts or general ideas are mere

collective representations of the experimental order. Today,

there are echos of the positivist and antipositivist,

authors write in different epistemological perspectives and

few practicing scholars explicitly state their

epistemological commitments or their position and therefore

it has to be guessed from sources such as methodology or

theory. This is very hard since some scholars critiqued as

positivist may actually hold postpositivst views.

One scholar has described this debate in terms of the social

construction of the "other", with each side defining the

other by what it is not rather than what it is, and then

proceeding to attribute far greater homogeneity to their

opponents than actually exists, (Bryman, 1984). In effect

two different arguments, on one hand the articulation of a

social meta-theory and a positivist development of a

scientific research methodology for sociology. Still, in

general normative theory has continued to maintain an

intellectual vigour and its social relevance while absolute

metaphysical truths as a basis now is regarded with greater

suspicion and a greater reflexivity with respect to not only

value-pluralism, but what is political philosophy.

3. In Sum: What Is Political Science

The question in conclusion is exactly what political

science Is? It is clear that political science is

diverse, but there may also be a ‘conventional’ wisdom

where from the structural side in the field contained

both input and output contributions. As to the former,

political socialization, political communication, and

interest articulation; how people ‘talked’ about the

state. As to the latter, rule making and rule

application, for example; how the state processed demands

by its citizens. By the various methods deployed to

discover and dissimulate information the field of

Political science Is.

To assist in this answer it should be known “that

substantive work in political science is done by

comparing the work of theorists who, despite employing

common concepts in their research, operate from radically

different ontological and espistemological positions.

However, that analysts arrive at different conclusions is

not a problem or the issue since only through dialogue

between contrasting perspectives that knowledge as awhole

moves forward,” (Blyth, 292). As Mark Blyth also notes,

how different positions generate contrasting answers, but

to recognize that only through research within these

separate traditions and then debating what is found can

true understanding be found. In effect, by “comparison

and contestation among different perspectives offer a way

around irresolvable philosophical problems and allow us

to engage…” (Blyth, 293). Knowledge about the dealing

with the nature of being and epistemology since it makes

aware the biases and limitations of research strategies

as well as the different theories work in the field. Also

by examining the concepts of institutions one can see

potential pay off from different approaches and if their

own has been theoretically productive or not and finally;

taken together how the filed progresses as a whole. By

producing research and participating in the conversation

on the findings we are one step closer to the helping us

understand political science for what it provides to us

as scholars and lay readers. It tells us something about

the world we did not already know.

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