Political Science 120, Comparative Political Regimes Winter Term 2005
Session 1: Science! Assumptions, Causal Relationships, Concepts, Methods, and Variables
I. Toward a Science of Politics
A. What Political Science Is and Is Not (graphic)
B. Why Study Politics as a Science? (graphic)
II. Epistemology: The Assumption of Rationality in Political Science
A. The Rational Choice Assumption1) Definition and Components (graphic)2) Common Problems
B. Alternative Approaches (graphic)1) Interpretation2) Cognition
3) Constructivism
4) Postmodernism
C. Problems with the Alternatives (graphic)
III. Theory and Comparative Method: How Do We Know a Good Causal Argument When We See One?
A. General Guidelines for Building Theory (graphic)
(Aside on "Descriptive vs Explanatory Inference")(Aside on "Quantitative vs Qualitative Method")
B. The Anatomy of a Causal Argument1) Variables (graphic 1) (graphic 2) (graphic 3)2) Operationalization
3) Causal Relationships
C. Common Problems with the Gathering and Use of Evidence(graphic 1)(graphic 2) (graphic 3)
D. Common Fallacies in Causal Argument (graphic)
IV. Definitions and Conceptualization
A. The Importance of Clarity
B. Common Problems with Conceptualization: The Case of "Democracy" (graphic)
C. Sartori's Approach (graphic 1) (graphic 2)
D. Helpful Definitions (graphic)
V. Methods Exericse (graphic)
Handouts and Links:
Richard Harter, “Piltdown Man."
Recommended: Gerardo Munck, “Canons of Research Design in Qualitative Analysis,” Studies in Comparative International Development 33:3 (1998): 18-45.
Edward Mansfield and Jack Snyder, "Democratization and the Danger of War," International Security 20:1 (Summer 1995): 5-38.
Paper One Handout
Key Concepts: Introduction: inference, scientific method, the research question, historicism, hyper-relativism.
Epistemology: the rationality assumption, preference hierarchy, transitive v. intransitive preferences, collective action, Mancur Olson's n-person problem, satisficing, strategic interaction, Prisoner's Dilemma, the "sucker's payoff," public goods, the problem of revealed preferences, Verstehen, cognitive consistency and cognitive dissonance, framing, social learning, the aggregation (or reductionism) problem, the "but for" test.
Theory and Comparative Method: falsifiability, replicability, significance (a.k.a. the "so what?" challenge), plausibility, operationalizability, parsimony, communicability, descriptive v. explanatory inference, the problem of empiricism, variables: nominal/ordinal/interval, dependent v. independent (explanatory) variables, key causal v. control variables, the counterfactual, the Fundamental Problem of Causal Inference, longitudinal v. cross-sectional/comparative studies, variance, outliers, the unit homogeneity assumption, the problem of endogeneity, the problem of "searching on the dependent variable," random selection, validity of indicators; reliability of data collection techniques, the problem of bias, omitted variable bias, spurious correlations, measurement error.
Definitions and Conceptualization: ladder of abstraction, denotation v. connotation of a word, middle range theory, universe of cases, definitional gerrymandering, conceptual overstretching (or understretching), procedural definition of democracy, diminished subtypes.
