Can Politics Be Regarded as a Science Essay

The debate as whether politics can be regarded as a science is ‘complex, voluminous and multi-faceted one’ . The origins of political analysis lie in the philosophical tradition of Plato and Aristotle whose work was fundamentally rooted in the normative. At the very early stages of politics as an academic discipline, the great thinkers of the time were not concerned with empirical evidence; instead basing their ideas on literary analysis. The emphasis on the normative that comes with the traditional study of politics suggests that politics is not a science as it cannot be objective. This was followed by the emergence of the normative model of political analysis and what Peter Lasslett called the ‘the death of political philosophy’. This movement was spearheaded by Machiavelli who was known as the father of the ‘politics model’ of political science. For example, he changes the value-laden question (what is better? ) into a scientific one; what is safer? The shift from the prescriptive to the descriptive and impartial suggests that political thought has shifted away from the traditional philosophical to the scientific model. The empirical model of political thought emphasised the importance of experience as the basis for knowledge and this later developed into positivism which dictates that the social sciences should adhere to the methods of the natural sciences . An extreme version of this was also created called ‘logical positivism’ which stated that only statements which were empirically verifiable and aimed to say something about the meaning of political concepts are legitimate . In fact the empirical model is seen as the foundation of comparative politics that is now the standard form of analysis in the UK and the US. This method seeks to develop generalizations by comparing different states or political systems. This produces slightly more informative results as one is more likely to be able to produce an ideal political situation through comparison rather than just using empirical evidence alone. However, there have been criticisms of the validity of comparative politics most notably from Alasdair MacIntyre. He states that creating law-like cross cultural generalizations between countries with radically different cultures is not as valid as proponents of comparative politics make it out to be . He uses the example of a study by Almond and Verba that states that Italians identify less with the actions of their government than the English or Germans because they of a survey asking what they took pride in . The point that McIntyre then goes on to make is that the notions of pride in Italy and England are vastly different and thus any comparison would have to start by identifying the virtues that are embedded within the institutions. However, he goes on to add that this shortcoming doesn’t completely devalue the work of comparative politics. Karl Marx was the first to describe politics in terms of science and, along with Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, was described one of the main architects of political science . He believed that he could methodically determine trends in history and from these deduct the future outcomes of social conflicts. However, whilst this approach may seem to be simply empirical in its approach to political analysis it has been confirmed that ‘his theories yield testable propositions that allow rigorous evaluation and even falsification’ . His role represents a dramatic shift from the political philosophers of the traditional Greek model as he famously said in his Theses of Feuerbach that ‘philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it’ . However, whilst Marx may have been the first person to truly combine scientific methodology with political thought, questions can still be raised over its validity. For example, the fact that Marx predicted the fall of capitalism whilst in fact state socialism has been on the retreat. There has also been criticism of Marx’s methods. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper criticised scientific socialism as a pseudoscience due to Marx’s methods of looking at historical trends and using them to create universal laws which couldn’t be tested of disprove. This may suggest that the Marxist model of political analysis as a science is not correct. Despite this it is important to note how, whilst Marx’s predictions may not have proved correct, his methods and the concept of politics as a science is unquestionable. Enthusiasm for the idea of political science grew in the 20th century with the creation of the American Political Science Review in 1906 and also the emergence of the behaviouralism movement in the 1950s and 1960s. This was the period coined as ‘the behavioural revolution’ by Robert Garner who claimed that ‘number crunching†¦in relation to electoral behaviour was the gold standard’ whilst normative analysis was rendered ‘at best, unnecessary and at worst, meaningless’ . This can be viewed as the most compelling case for politics being regarded as a science as it is the first time that objective and quantifiable data could be tested against hypotheses. The form of political analysis that was emerging in this period was heavily based on behaviouralism which worked on the principle that social theories should be constructed on the basis of observable behaviour which provides quantifiable evidence for research. This lead to increased interest and activity in the field of quantitative research methods such as voting behaviour, the records of legislators and the behaviour of lobbyists. It was also at this time that David Easton claimed that politics could adopt the methodology of the natural sciences . Here we can see how the initial links that Marx drew between politics and scientific research methods have been refined with the use of quantifiable rather than just empirical evidence. There have been objections to the usefulness of behaviouralism in the study of politics though. One argument has been that it has significantly limited the scope of analysis by preventing it from going beyond what is directly quantifiable or observable. The idea behind this is that whilst the methodical basis behind behaviouralism may be scientifically sound that doesn’t mean that it is the way to analyse politics. This raises the question as to whether politics should be regarded as a science rather than could it. The very nature of politics is that it is inherently human and to discard all that is not empirically verifiable in its study is to neglect the very essence of politics. This argument could be viewed as irrelevant to the question however because it actually looking at whether politics should be regarded as a science and not if it could. This being said Andrew Heywood presents a valid criticism of the methodology of behaviouralism and the use of quantifiable data. The scientific basis of behaviouralism is that it is objective but in order for this to be so it has to be ‘value-free’. He claims that facts and values are ‘so closely intertwined that it is often impossible to prise them apart’ and that theories are always based on assumptions human nature . This argument presents a major threat to the legitimacy of behaviouralism and suggests that the methodological basis behind it is not sound enough to equate to the conclusion of politics as a science. Whilst the methodology of political science may be all well and good, this doesn’t necessarily lead us to the conclusion that politics should be regarded as a science. There have been many arguments to suggest that despite the existence of quantifiable and empirical evidence, it is actually damaging to study politics in a scientific manner. For one, the very nature of political science is that it is descriptive rather prescriptive. This idea seems to be counter intuitive to the very study of politics as a discipline. Whilst, the added scientific element to political analysis gives us the added advantage of scrutiny and academic rigour it will never produce any political ideas without the normative aspect of political philosophy. This presents to us how damaging political science can be if studied in isolation since the very nature of the political analysis is one that should be aimed at progression, change and determining how to achieve our political ideals. In fact in recent years, the validity of political science has started to be questioned by political scientists themselves. As an undergraduate Charles Lindblom apparently fled the ‘mushiness’ of political science to pursue a graduate study of economics and David Easton proclaimed that he had ‘political science [as a] coherent body of knowledge’ had no basis . This suggests that whilst political science doesn’t translate as smoothly in practice. The Perestroika Movement began in October 2000 with an anonymous email to the American Political Science Review calling for a ‘dismantling of the Orwellian system that we have in the APSA. The movement was largely a reaction to the so called ‘mathematicization’ of political science and a desire to achieve methodological pluralism. Specifically, it ‘aimed at challenging the dominance of positivist research, particularly research that assumes that political behaviour can be predicted according to theories of rationality ’. Whilst this movement could be seen as a criticism of political science it could just as easily be seen as highly constructive. It recognises the merits of politics being studied as a science yet wants it to e more inclusive and less restricted in terms of methodology. However, this presents a problem for the positivist wing of political scientists that stick to the assertion that political science should obey the methods of the natural sciences. From this we can come to the conclusion that criticisms of political science is not proof of how politics shouldn’t be regarded as a science but is instead just an example of two methodological factions within the discipline. We can see how the historical development of political science presents a good case for the idea that politics can be regarded as a science. Some claim that politics is a science because it ‘offers knowledge based on systematic enquiry’ . However, this claim bases itself on a loose definition of science and one that many political analysts wouldn’t be completely satisfied with. The arguments for politics being regarded as a science lie more in the stringent scientific methodology that can seemingly be applied to political analysis. Whilst there have been many criticisms of methodology of political science I think that the major qualms that academics have is with the danger of studying political science in isolation. The obsession with empirical data that developed during the ‘behavioural revolution’ could easily be labelled as counter-intuitive seeing as it completely disregards the normative. Despite this I think that politics can still be regarded as a science, yet it is just important that this is combined with elements of the old philosophical tradition.