Political Science--Future Directions?

[polphd]

I'm an UG who wants to apply for PhD programs in a few years. I love my field, and enjoy discovering new patterns and trends. In the scheme of things, I was wondering what you guys think this generation, and the next generation, of political scientists are accomplishing, in a "practical" sense. We all hear of economists revolutionizing the field--Paul Krugman today, and Milton Friedman in the past. In chemistry, scientists make practical contributions to medicine, material science, etc. And, I feel that historically, political scientists' did the same thing (particularly in international relations and theory): Anthony Downs, Lipset, Huntington, Herbert Simon, etc. Where do you find this in today's atmosphere? It seems that with the recent declines in political theory and "traditional" IR, there are not many new theories being developed--formal theory has been around since the '80s, and realism/liberalism have grown out of ideas that were developed more than fifty years ago.

Which names today do you think will be remembered 100 years from now? When you are professors, how do you plan to keep an eye to the long-run? What ideas have been developed in the last ten to fifteen years that you think will stick for a while?

[jackassjim]

If you are to believe J. Nye (check his recent Washington Post op-ed), political scientists have lost their way.

[rustytrix]

is it just me or is there a growing convergence between economics (political, development and the likes) and some of the subfields in poli sci? ...it seems there is a lot of tussle between economists and political scientists for space in the literature (esp. political economy)... nevertheless it seems economists, more often than not, seem to come out on top...possibly because the average economist has a far more extensive training on mathematical/statistical modeling than an average poli scientist ?

[Canofbeans]

If you are to believe J. Nye (check his recent Washington Post op-ed), political scientists have lost their way.

This is an interesting question, and I would have to agree (not completely) with Nye's claim that the role IR academics are in the decline. Although I don't think it's the academy's fault, but there's an increasing gap between the theory and the practical which is causing this lack of involvement of academics in policy positions. I personally think it has much to do with the political process becoming more and more centralized. In the last 20 years, not only have academics held fewer policy roles but we also saw the rise in non conventional theoretical perspectives that offer answers that a government may not want to hear. Huntington was huge because he offers something that many people actually believed and cared about. Even post 9-11, his clash of civilizations is being recycled. More and more academics are become increasingly critical of governmental policies which, I think is widening the gap so I don't know if we will see any names rising in the next few years. Interestingly, the ISA's conference theme for next year is on the gap between theory and practice.

[Jeppe]

I think what we are seeing now is an increasing recognition of the fact that the last thirty years of 'big' theories in IR just aren't very useful when applied to reality. Following the late 80's and 90's delve into meta-theory and ontological clashes, new scholars today are more concerned with less theoretical and more useful work. This is, in my opinion, why the most interesting work can be found within thematic subfields like civil war studies (Fazal, Lyall, Sambanis, Kalyvas), democratization (Snyder, Mansfield) etc.

[Manchild]

Some of the "new wave" of cutting edge empirical research employs experimental methods (which includes "exploiting" natural experiments), political geography (GIS), and "political genetics".

Not an IR scholar, but it appears as though IR Theory is becoming less and less relevant to the study of conflict, security, and international institutions.

[leetchisgod]

I think the current global economic crisis is going to shape the field for the long term future, that is to say, the theorist who will be remembered in a 100 years will be those who will find the solutions and insights into the current crisis, because let's not kid ourselves, this thing is a lot bigger than we want to believe. If critical theorists play their cards right, they can tear a major gash in the current orthodox, rationalist, positivist attitudes that can be found at majority of departments in political science, and leave a lasting mark. I think the general concentration will be in IPE, because there are a lot of things that have gone wrong at a lot of different levels, which encompass differing cultural, political and economic strands and the current crisis demonstrates how they are far too interconnected to be dealt with by boxing them up individually. I also think many of the solutions will shift into physiological aspects of decision making in the political/public policy process. So, that's what I'm thinking, in fact I'm banking on it over the next 4 years.

[Manchild]

I think the current global economic crisis is going to shape the field for the long term future, that is to say, the theorist who will be remembered in a 100 years will be those who will find the solutions and insights into the current crisis, because let's not kid ourselves, this thing is a lot bigger than we want to believe. If critical theorists play their cards right, they can tear a major gash in the current orthodox, rationalist, positivist attitudes that can be found at majority of departments in political science, and leave a lasting mark. I think the general concentration will be in IPE, because there are a lot of things that have gone wrong at a lot of different levels, which encompass differing cultural, political and economic strands and the current crisis demonstrates how they are far too interconnected to be dealt with by boxing them up individually. I also think many of the solutions will shift into physiological aspects of decision making in the political/public policy process. So, that's what I'm thinking, in fact I'm banking on it over the next 4 years.

...alternatively, equilibrium approaches to the study of institutions may be the best way to explain ongoing democratic stability in developed contexts in the face of tremendous economic uncertainty...

[leetchisgod]

Obviously, I have a major bias here, but, I think that if the rationalist accounts of economic theory are in any way impaired due to what's going on, and they are really under pressure with people like Nassim Nicholas Taleb being thrust into the spotlight as of late, the chance they stand in the political sphere is limited. I think as interesting as theoretical frameworks such as rational choice institutionalism and other rationalistic explanations are, at the end of the day, they seek to provide too much insight based on too limited an understanding of institutional structures and actors that take part in the process. The same applies to other institutional theories like those which concentrate on the historical evolution of the organizations, especially with the problem of an over reliance on path dependency. Political science is not a hard science, political scientists need to stop holding themselves to the standard of a natural science that they cannot meet, and pretending we can makes us lose credibility in the long run. I think I should stop before people catch on to the fact that I'm speaking, well typing, out of my ass. *zips it, for now*

[leetchisgod]

Some on say something, I don't want to be a thread killer.

[Canofbeans]

Obviously, I have a major bias here, but, I think that if the rationalist accounts of economic theory are in any way impaired due to what's going on, and they are really under pressure with people like Nassim Nicholas Taleb being thrust into the spotlight as of late, the chance they stand in the political sphere is limited. I think as interesting as theoretical frameworks such as rational choice institutionalism and other rationalistic explanations are, at the end of the day, they seek to provide too much insight based on too limited an understanding of institutional structures and actors that take part in the process. The same applies to other institutional theories like those which concentrate on the historical evolution of the organizations, especially with the problem of an over reliance on path dependency. Political science is not a hard science, political scientists need to stop holding themselves to the standard of a natural science that they cannot meet, and pretending we can makes us lose credibility in the long run. I think I should stop before people catch on to the fact that I'm speaking, well typing, out of my ass. *zips it, for now*

True, I also think political scientists need to stop pretending to be hard scientist that can study the world by developing rational calculations that exclude so many factors. However, when this does happen, I think governments stop listening. It's difficult to take advice from an academic that can't bring forth proof, tests, numbers etc. to prove his theory -- states don't want philosophers advising them on issues of foreign policy. Perhaps I don't know enough yet, but I feel like nobody listens to academics like Campbell or Smith that have really important contributions, and a growing number of scholars are developing similar approaches to the study.

[leetchisgod]

I don't think it's an academics job to cater their research so to make it more presentable for government consumption. Governments and other actors will take notice when the mathematical gold they're fed doesn't provide them the answers they need which reflect the real world. I mean just look at what they've gotten themselves into in the current situation. Remove stats out of the list of mandatory classes for college students to take and you'll see a vast improvement in political science research and analysis.

[jackassjim]

I don't think it's an academics job to cater their research so to make it more presentable for government consumption. [...] Remove stats out of the list of mandatory classes for college students to take and you'll see a vast improvement in political science research and analysis.

You're joking, right? Policy-relevance doesn't matter, and understanding basic statistics impedes our ability to produce good research and analysis?

[Canofbeans]

Nobody said Policy-relevance doesn't matter, of course it does but it's the way the information is construed that needs fixing. And basic stats are important but, scholars need to stop counting and rationalizing the world as if it was just composed of atoms that we can isolate and understand to predict peace and conflict. Anyhow, I think we're getting into a debate that academics have been having for the last 20 years, so I doubt we'll be fixing anything here.

[plisar]

Wait, what? Did ^^ just suggest that we remove MORE math from the typical college curriculum? Lord, because math is a subject that Americans take TOO much of...wow.

[natofone]

Statistics are no panacea, but they have their place for certain types of questions that pertain to particular topics.

I suggest these articles:

Robert W. Jackman,

[plisar]

Once you stop taking math, you start closing doors...

Apparently stopping, however, imakes you a good political scientist...

[natofone]

There are limits as to what both statistical methods and non-statistical methods can achieve, but both are valid methods. Statistical projects can rarely determine the direction of causation for a specific correlative relationship, but they can make generalizations on a wider scope of cases than can qualitative methods. Statistical projects can establish that relationships exist and allow for generalizations, but qualitative projects allow for the explanation of extreme, outlier cases (which are commonly more interesting, but statistical projects commonly ignore). Quantitative and qualitative methods work great together.

[leetchisgod]

I think canobeans pretty much put into context my problems with things like regression analysis. I don't believe researchers are omniscient and can't possibly take into account all the important inputs that can result in a particular action taking place. There is far too much variance out there. I think a large part of this problem is to do with the fact that research is based on other research, whether it be methodologically or ideologically, because of that there's a tunnel vision affect. Past research sets out the conditions, limits and means by which "acceptable" research can be created. Since the past laws set these conditions, often times they trap future research into a particular strand, research that varies, doesn't really have the capability of fully express itself because it will never be taken seriously. All of this is on the precondition that past research was done in a perfectly valid way and past results are the gold standard and most importantly, that they are to be taken as truths. So the sun still should revolve around the earth, which at the end of the day is flat. Obviously, that isn't true today, but it took some work and some dogmatic rejections before we got around to that being false, and you know what, I would leave that even open. In a way, when doing research is this manner, we're just map makers and not the actual explorers, improving the map, using different colors but not finding new territory. I know for many of you this is looney toons, but I don't think you can completely throw out this argument without some pause.

As for statistics (NOT ALL MATH, unless all math is statistics, which I didn't think was the case), yes, I do have a major problem with how they are utilized in social sciences. I think to demonstrate what my problem is I have to use some of Taleb's ideas because he puts them in such a simple manner. Stats are based on a Guassian thinking and the bell curve is too often misapplied and people don't realize this misapplication. The example that Taleb gives is as follows. Take 1,000 random people in the world, measure their height come up with the average. Throw in the tallest man in the world, how much does your average change? Miniscule. Take 1,000 random people in the world, measure their wealth. Throw in Bill Gates, how much does your average change? In those terms, taking into account the bell curve, people of Bill Gates' wealth class should be far less likely to statistically exist than they actually do. Now if you apply the same logic to history, there have been historical events like market failures which have statistically, according to Guassian models occur far less frequently and yet they do. In terms of qualitative history, decision making like Hitler's was highly unpredictable, no one would have thought someone would be that crazy, and yet, it happens over and over again. We constantly limit the realm of possibilities when we apply statistics to reality. Going back to and looking at these events, we plant our own reasons to explain why the happened. Yet when you look at the writing that occurred before the event happened, you see that they were completely oblivious to it. Predicting things is difficult, because you know, unpredictable shit happens. But we seem to think, because we can scratch a few numbers together we've solved the problem and can move forward as if we're definitely correct. I mean I say that IPE should be the big thing to research in the future, but something could happen tomorrow that will out weigh that.

[natofone]

I think that you're blurring the lines between ideological and methodological distinctions, or something, with your constant reference to the current financial crisis. What exactly is your argument?

I also believe that you are employing a false notion of the goal of statistical research. A standard regression analysis does not argue causality. Instead, it argues correlation. It argues that a relationship exists and can measure the strength of a relationship, but it can rarely determine the direction of causality. It works great for certain kinds of problems, but poorly for others.

[Luckige]

I'm not sure this correlates perfectly with the thread, but I find this Kahneman's quote very interesting:

"Why do people use models? I liken what is happening now [he refers to the financial turmoil, but it could be Hitler] to a system that forecasts the weather, and does so very well. People know when to take an umbrella when they leave the house, or when it will snow. Except what? The system can't predict hurricanes. Do we use the system anyway, or throw it out? It turns out they'll use it."

[Canofbeans]

Natofone, you are right on the usage of statistical research, but I think using it and only stats for understanding the world composed of people with different histories and cultures can lead to a dangerous path. Even with stats, you can count people and state behaviors in the U.S Canada or wherever and do the same for people in states in Asia or the Middle East. By that, we act as though people are all the same and will all act certain ways depending on certain variables and I think that is dangerous. We're obviously just drawing back to a positivist/post-positivist debate. Nothing new here, I don't know why certain people are surprised that we or I don't think IR scholars should be solely relying on stats or some want to just get rid of stats completely. Feminist, postcolonial, postructuralist IR scholars have all challenged the claims of positivism. I did my undergrad in a department where math was unheard of, why in the world would you need it if you're studying polisci? Then somewhere along the road, I discovered I was just studying at a critical department and that there is something called quantitative IR where people actually took calculus and algebra class, I think that's a bit much.

[polisciphd]

Even in the crazy quant oriented world of the big ten, we still emphasize multi-method approaches. One of the cool things that occurs when you do mix methods is to get a model that has good predictive or explanatory strength, yet identifies anomalies or outliers that might be worthy of investigation, qualitatively. Sometimes the outliers turn out to be the most interesting cases (and of the most relevance to policy makers, which is one of the things I look at, bridging the poli sci/policy divide)

[DrewCarolina]

I think, like most things, the answer lies in the middle. I don't think that anyone uses only statistics to make their claims. I also think it's very foolish to remove the option of using statistics. Statistics are useful to explain specific phenomenon, not to frame some kind of overarching theory. You're right to say that different cultures assign different values to things. That doesn't mean that there isn't a real world they are dealing with. Can you really say that a country's leadership doesn't look at options and decide which one it thinks is best? Sure, those options are shaped by beliefs and social concepts, but on the ground level of IR there are decisions being made. Politics at its core is the study of who gets what and how. You can argue that our intersubjective social ideas or that our beliefs decide what "what" is, but there is still an interaction to be made.

It all comes back to where you were educated. It is interesting how people are exposed to different concepts as they expand their horizons. I am an American who is going to do an MA in Poli Sci at Toronto. My undergraduate education had a very neoliberal perspective. I'm looking forward to being exposed to new ideas and interpretations. I'm not open to being told that everything is a social construction.

[swr22]

Stephen Walt has an interesting post on the topics being discussed here. His paper that he links to on rational choice theory is also worth a read:

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/200 ... he_economy