HOW TO STUDY COMPARATIVE POLITICS?

HOW TO STUDY COMPARATIVE POLITICS?

When many people consider the field of science, they may think of laboratories

filled with clinicians in white lab coats, chemical experiments with bubbling vials, or

vast chalkboards of mathematical equations. Many times, the word ‘science’ will

conjure images of what are called the hard sciences. Hard sciences, such as

chemistry, mathematics, and physics, work to advance scientific understanding in the

natural or physical sciences. In contrast, soft sciences, like psychology, sociology,

anthropology and political science, work to advance scientific understanding of human

behavior, institutions, society, government, decision making, and power. Based on

facing hard and soft sciences, Physicist Heinz Pagels called the social sciences the

“sciences of complexity,” and said further, “the nations and people who master the new

sciences of complexity will become the economic, cultural, and political superpowers

of the 21st century" (Pagels, 1988). To this end, the advancements made by the soft

sciences, like political science, should not be undercut or diminished, but sought to be

understood and further pursued. Indeed, as science is defined as the systematic and

organized approach to any area of inquiry and utilizes scientific methods to acquire

and build a body of knowledge, political science, as well as comparative politics as a

subfield of political science, embody the essence of the scientific method and possess

deep foundations for the scientific tools and theory formation which align with their

Approach). In observing countries and their similarities and differences, we need to be

able to distinguish between actions or decisions that are happening systematically

from actions or decisions that may happen randomly. To this end, political scientists

follow and rely on the rules of scientific inquiry to conduct their research. Yet, as in all

social sciences, political science must also recognize its inherent limitations that

cannot perfectly mimic the so-called hard sciences. In the sections below, we introduce

characteristics which affirm political science as a science, followed by the principles of

scientific methods and the process of scientific inquiry as it is applicable to

comparative politics.

Is Political Science a Science?

The nature of human behavior within political relationships has been studied

and considered for centuries but has not always operated under a strictly scientific

Beginning in the late 1800s, scholars began attempting to treat political science, and

indeed most of the social sciences, as a hard science that could utilize the scientific

method. Through decades of debate, some level of consensus was met through

scholastic political science communities as to defining the characteristics of research

in political science and how research could best be conducted. A seminal work in the

field of political science that sought to describe the features of scientific research within

the field came from Gary King, Robert Keohane and Sidney Verba, who wrote,

Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research in 1994 (King et

al., 1994). Although the book was discussing political science in relation to qualitative

research methods, which will be discussed later, they also spent a generous amount

such an effort scientific. This is true no matter how systematically one is collecting the

facts or the types of information being collected. In order for a study to be scientific, it

requires the additional step of going beyond the immediately observable information

in an effort to learn about something broader that is not directly observable. The

process of making inferences can help us learn about the unobserved facts by

describing it based on empirical information. For example, while we cannot directly

observe democracy, political scientists have identified various tenets and

concept. We can also learn the causal effects from the observed information. For

example, political scientists have been studying and attempting to identify the cause

of war and the process of a successful war termination.

inferences. As a condition for publication, it is often required for the authors of a

published work to share data files or survey questionnaires to ensure that anyone

could possibly replicate the work to assess its reliability as well as to evaluate the

appropriateness of the method being used in such work.

Third, because of the fact that the process of making inferences is imperfect,

the conclusions of scientific research are uncertain as well. Researchers must be

aware of a reasonable estimate of uncertainty in their work to ensure that they can

effectively interpret their conclusions. By definition, inferences without some level of

uncertainty are not scientific. This idea relates to one of the most critical characteristics

of a good theory, that is a theory must be falsifiable (discussed more in the sections

below).

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the content of scientific research is the

study anything in a scientific manner as long as the researcher follows the rules of

inference and scientific methods.

The Scientific Method

If you have ever enrolled in a science course, you have likely encountered the

scientific method. The scientific method is a process by which knowledge is acquired

through a sequence of steps, which generally include the following components:

question, observation, hypothesis, testing of the hypothesis, analysis of the outcomes,

and reporting of the findings. Ideally, use of the scientific method will build a body of

knowledge and culminate in the formation of inferences and potentially theories for

why/how phenomena exist or occur. It is useful to briefly consider each of these

Broadly speaking the scientific method within political science will involve the

political scientist’s literature review. A literature review becomes a section of

your research paper or research process which collects key sources and

previous research on your research question and discusses the findings in

synthesis with each other. From this work, you are able to have a full scope of

understanding of all previous work performed on your topic, which will enhance

knowledge in the field.

3. Theory and hypothesis development: Develop a theory that explains a potential

answer to your research question. A theory is a statement that explains how the

world works based on experience and observation. From the theory, you will

construct hypotheses to test the theory. A hypothesis is a specific and testable

with cause-and-effect relationships, they will divide the variables into two

categories: independent variables (explanatory variables) are the cause, and

these variables are independent of other variables under consideration in a

study. Dependent variables (outcome variables) are the assumed effect, their

values will (presumably) depend on the changes in the independent variables.

4. Testing: A political scientist, at this stage, will test the hypothesis, or hypotheses,

through observation of the relationship between the designated variables.

their results and draw conclusions about the findings. Was the hypothesis

correct? If so, they will be able to report the success of their findings. Was the

hypothesis incorrect? That’s okay! A famous quip in this field is, 'no finding is

6. Reporting of findings: Reporting results, whether the hypothesis is true, partially

true, or outright false, is critical to the advancement of the overall field. Typically,

researchers will attempt to publish their findings so the findings are public and

transparent, and so others may continue research in that area.