Urgent Message from APSA

[bees]

I am sending an emergency message to political science department chairs to ask your quick help. APSA has just learned that Sen. Coburn (R-OK) has proposed

an amendment to eliminate NSF's political science program. It is an amendment to the Senate Commerce, Justice, Science appropriations bill, which is currently on the Senate floor today - Wednesday October 7th.

Calls today to your Senator's office are important.

The message should be:

Vote against Coburn's amendment to eliminate the political science program at the National Science Foundation (NSF). It is amendment No. 2631 to

the Senate's consideration of HR 2847.

You can find information on how to contact your Senator at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_i ... rs_cfm.cfm

There is more information on Senator Coburn's position here:

http://coburn.senate.gov/public/index.c ... 6640c2c880

That may help you craft a response.

I would welcome any nuggets or suggestions you have, as well, to contribute to materials about the importance of political science. Please send me your examples or thoughts.

Any help is much appreciated. Thank you very much.

Michael Brintnall

Executive Director, American Political Science Association

202.483-2512 x105 fx 202.483-2657 cell 202.255.1880

brintnall@apsanet.org www.apsanet.org

[bees]

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... al_science

[beebly]

I would welcome any nuggets or suggestions you have, as well, to contribute to materials about the importance of political science. Please send me your examples or thoughts.

Political science can be important and still not be science. If you argue that it deserves NSF funding because it's a science, you discredit all qualitative, theoretical, and historical work in the field for the sake of a few more federal dollars in your own pocket.

[mwash]

Since when has qualitative, theoretical, and historical (empirical) work been unscientific?

[readeatsleep]

i agree with mwash - to characterize political science as 'not science' or 'not scientific' is to cede too much ground to our detractors.

political science is either scientific in the traditional sense or in a self-conscious sense. in the traditional sense, political scientists apply theories to observations in order to garner information from those observations and make predictions according to these theories. this kind of science is useful in creating peace and prosperity because it introduces predictability into otherwise chaotic situations.

in the self-conscious sense, political science is scientific because it criticizes the assumptions of traditional political science. in this way, political science is scientific because it is interested in providing the best description of the state of affairs we are observing. being conscious of the errors of our ways of describing the world is good because it prevents us from seeing our values as 'true', and scapegoating elements of the world that dont conform to these descriptions as 'untrue.'

[beebly]

Since when has qualitative, theoretical, and historical (empirical) work been unscientific?

Since it has failed to derive any predictive or universally generalizable laws of politics from replicable experiments? As far as I know, the NSF doesn't operate with an Aristotelian understanding of science (however desirable that might be). Interpretations of Hobbes, case studies of civil wars in Africa, and political behavior studies lacking external validity are not science, though they might be better and more important to politics than science would be.

to characterize political science as 'not science' or 'not scientific' is to cede too much ground to our detractors

What if the bigger problem is trying to hold this tenuous and self-destructive ground, rather than demonstrating the validity of qualitative and theoretical approaches? It's possible that the real enemies of the humanities and social sciences are not the people who deride them for not being scientific enough, but those who believe they should or could be wholly or even primarily scientific.

in the traditional sense, political scientists apply theories to observations in order to garner information from those observations and make predictions according to these theories. this kind of science is useful in creating peace and prosperity because it introduces predictability into otherwise chaotic situations.

What are some examples of political science research that has actually resulted in causal and predictive models?

in the self-conscious sense, political science is scientific because it criticizes the assumptions of traditional political science. in this way, political science is scientific because it is interested in providing the best description of the state of affairs we are observing.

I'm not sure how self-criticism and description can be said to qualify as science, unless we are to conclude that poetry and painting and journalism are also sciences because they criticize and observe the world and themselves.

[readeatsleep]

What if the bigger problem is trying to hold this tenuous and self-destructive ground, rather than demonstrating the validity of qualitative and theoretical approaches? It's possible that the real enemies of the humanities and social sciences are not the people who deride them for not being scientific enough, but those who believe they should or could be wholly or even primarily scientific.

well, obviously it would be beneficial to abandon the idea of science altogether, particularly for a field of study that deals with normative and moral claims (claims i dont think are available to scientific analysis). but its the NSF, and to justify political science to the NSF means to think about political science as it relates to science qua science. im a philosopher - not a quantitative statistician - but i also know that it doesnt help to be rigidly opposed to any description of academic activity, or unnecessarily quixotic. the reality of the situation is that funding is scarce, and i am interested in securing funds for research in political science. real world politic sometimes requires compromise, and i dont feel we need some somber conspiracy theory about over-emphasizing scientific descriptions of political science to get grant money...

What are some examples of political science research that has actually resulted in causal and predictive models?

the fields of political economy and comparative politics, i think, has made large steps towards formalizing the process by which developing nations acquire political stability as well as economic viability, within or outside of participatory structures of governance. i also think game theoretic approaches have made substantial formal models for predicting decision making, although these models are obviously limited in their own way, as any scientific model is.

I'm not sure how self-criticism and description can be said to qualify as science, unless we are to conclude that poetry and painting and journalism are also sciences because they criticize and observe the world and themselves.

im proposing that we can think of political science, particularly in its more qualitative forms, as a self-reflective science in that the same way horkheimer imagined crtical theory to be a self-critical science. so, i mean that political science qua critical theory can also theorize its coordinates within the social system it is describing. a critical approach to game theory would insist on the limits of game theory, the places where it shows its description not to be hermetic (for example, collective action). a critical approach to marxism might question the practical use of intellectual approaches to politics in general, the tendency for the ivory tower to impede progressive reform. poetry and painting and journalism can be self-reflective in this sense, but they are not usually also geared towards social analysis in the same rigorous way that political science is, so they are merely self-reflective, not self-reflective sciences.

[beebly]

the reality of the situation is that funding is scarce, and i am interested in securing funds for research in political science.

I hear the NIH has lots of money--maybe we can construe poli sci as a branch of biology, too, or at least a discipline contributing to the public health? I have no interest in starving political science of funds, but again, my point is that Coburn is not wrong to claim that most of political science is not science, and that the kind of counter-argument suggested here--that we emphasize the predictive modeling side of the discipline (primarily methodology, as you point out) in order to prove that the entire discipline is scientific does a disservice to those subfields (indeed, the majority) that neither are nor ever will be scientific, regardless of how many regressions they perform on their data sets. The only effect such emphasis will have is to encourage even more statistical demonstrations of the obvious or parochial in order to establish some patina of scientific credibility and funding worthiness. Why not just say, politics does not follow natural laws and is not susceptible to predictive or causal modeling. We study what we can, and it's valuable at least to understand what has happened, if not what will happen, and that's all there is to it.

the fields of political economy and comparative politics, i think, has made large steps towards formalizing the process by which developing nations acquire political stability as well as economic viability

So, armed with this data, we can now repair Iraq? What are we waiting for?

a critical approach to marxism might question the practical use of intellectual approaches to politics in general, the tendency for the ivory tower to impede progressive reform.

If this is the sense in which you mean "scientific," you do not even need a critical approach to Marxism. Marx himself thought of his work as scientific socialism. Maybe if we told this to the NSF, even political theorists, literary scholars, and philosophers could claim a piece of its funding pie? But I'm pretty sure that NSF's mandate to fund "basic science" does not encompass critical theory. Again, problems with predictive modeling and replicable experimentation.

[mwash]

It's fitting that you mention Iraq. In the lead-up to war, a number of prominent realists, including Ken Waltz, John Mearsheimer, and Stephen Walt, warned that war with Iraq would be a serious mistake. Their beliefs were rooted in theory, broad qualitative empirical research, and case studies on Iraq. This "non-scientific" approach led to two generalizable and falsifiable claims: first, that sadistic leaders like Saddam could be deterred, and second, that offshore balancing is a promising strategy.

Consider the money, human lives, and international legitimacy that our government would have saved if it listened to these IR scholars. It would be enough to compensate for the $9 million we get per year from the NSF, I would say. Of course, not all political science is done correctly, and there are very problematic qualitative studies that do not lead to sound policy prescriptions. But that is why political scientists need more funding from the NSF, so that we can arrive at more precise, empirically verified conclusions and train graduate students with the best scientific tools to conduct their qualitative and quantitative research.

[readeatsleep]

the kind of counter-argument suggested here--that we emphasize the predictive modeling side of the discipline (primarily methodology, as you point out) in order to prove that the entire discipline is scientific does a disservice to those subfields (indeed, the majority) that neither are nor ever will be scientific, regardless of how many regressions they perform on their data sets.

the fact that you must misrepresent my argument indicates the extent to which you are not being intellectually honest. i dont think giving a scientific description of political science is mutually exclusive with other descriptions. like i said, im a philosopher - A PHILOSOPHER - and i emphasize the philosophical aspects of political science. but the fact is that there is also alot of scientific approaches to political science. i never said i want to prove "that the entire discipline is scientific", rather, those elements that are scientific deserve funding from appropriate source. its a simple, honest observation, and you are getting into trouble by trying to make abstract generalizations (a problem with young theory-oriented thinkers!) i dont see what i do as somehow competitive with more scientific approaches, as if we are playing a zero sum game. comparing my claim to biology is willful ignorance.

So, armed with this data, we can now repair Iraq? What are we waiting for?

armed with this data, we would have never invaded iraq in the first place. im not saying political scientists are in charge of our strategic military decisions, just like regular scientists are not in charge of our emissions standards. rather, politicians make all these decisions. again, wilfully misrepresenting the facts to win an argument.

If this is the sense in which you mean "scientific," you do not even need a critical approach to Marxism. Marx himself thought of his work as scientific socialism.

no, marx's sense of science (dialectical materialism) is the exact apposite of what i am referring to as critical science, since marx's dia-mat was rigid and didnt have the means to theorize marx's own position, as a theorist, within the historical constellation. post-marxist approaches to marxism, i am thinking largely of benjamin, adorno, and althusser, are much more sensitive to this way of thinking.

But I'm pretty sure that NSF's mandate to fund "basic science" does not encompass critical theory. Again, problems with predictive modeling and replicable experimentation.

[flyers29]

No wonder political science is on the chopping block, this senator puts forth an utterly ridiculous argument ("Who needs political science when you have John King and his cool touch-screen electoral maps on CNN?") and you all respond by getting into philosophical arguments on how much of a "science" political science is. You need to speak the language of the policymaker to be effective, and this isn't it.

[mwash]

This is a thread between political scientists about whether political science legitimately counts as science. I doubt that there are any senators reading along, so there is no reason to dumb down the language if it means addressing this issue in a less rigorous way.

[flyers29]

This is a thread between political scientists about whether political science legitimately counts as science. I doubt that there are any senators reading along, so there is no reason to dumb down the language if it means addressing this issue in a less rigorous way.

I never said anything about dumbing down. The original post copies an email from APSA that wants to craft a response to Sen. Coburn. The discussion here about the "science" aspect is certainly legitimate in its own right, but isn't really the best approach to responding to this amendment imho. I don't really think that arguing the "science" aspect is a winning argument to a policymaker given constraints of time (even if those of us with a background in the subject see the scientific aspect). Therefore, my whole point is that those trying to kill the NSF funding do so utilizing real-world examples, as such they need to be met with a counter-argument using that line of thought. It's kind of hard to try and impose the "science" argument when a policy maker doesn't have the background to see it through that lens.

[bees]

Interesting article in the NY Times on the issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/books/20poli.html

[foosh]

In case anybody is interested in the actual text and status of the amendment (it looks for now it failed to pass the house with a 36-62 vote):

AMENDMENT:

SA 2631. Mr. COBURN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the bill H.R. 2847, making appropriations for the Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2010, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place in title III, insert the following:

Sec. __. None of the funds appropriated under this Act may be used to carry out the functions of the Political Science Program in the Division of Social and Economic Sciences of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation.

STATUS:

• 10/13/2009:Amendment SA 2631 proposed by Senator Coburn. (consideration: CR

S10343, S10345-10346; text: CR S10343)11/5/2009:Considered by Senate. (consideration: CR S11148, S11169-11170)11/5/2009:Amendment SA 2631 not agreed to in Senate by Yea-Nay Vote. 36 - 62. Record Vote Number: 336.