Politics: Liberal Arts vs. Quantitative

Discussion in 'Political Science' started by Anakrino, May 13, 2011.

  1. Anakrino

    Anakrino New Member

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    I've only been a member for a couple of days, but I get the feeling this particular area of the forum doesn't get much activity. Still, I thought I'd ask those of you who consider yourselves to be scholars of politics what you think about the increasing mathematization of political science.

    The traditionalists favor a liberal arts approach, which generally falls into one of three camps: political thought, political theory, and political philosophy. This is more of a Straussian categorization, so there are probably other ways of dissecting the field; the point is, the liberal arts approach is non-quantitative.

    The modernists favor a quantitative approach, which includes game theory, data collection, and regression models.

    So, to those of you who study politics, do you tend to place one approach over the other? Or do you think the two are somehow mutually supportive? Do you think they're equally useful?
     
  2. Albert Di Salvo

    Albert Di Salvo New Member

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    The quantitative approach didn't exist when I was in school. It was a different era. What is a regression model?
     
  3. Anakrino

    Anakrino New Member

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    When I was an undergraduate we never touched the stuff. The quantitative stuff, I mean. I didn’t even know that there was a quantitative method (beyond simple descriptive statistics, at least) for studying politics. As students we learned about politics simply by opening up and reading old texts, from Plato onward. These days political science students at research universities spend a good deal of time learning about data collection and processing. “Data” in politics can either be continuous, like values of income and time, or discrete, which are more arbitrary and categorical, like party affiliation, race, and level of agreement on an issue (e.g., strongly agree, weakly disagree, etc.). The new political science folks take these data and then process them using statistical software in an effort to determine correlations between a dependent variable and at least one (but almost always, several) independent variable.

    A basic example of what occurs when someone builds a model goes like this. The political scientist asks a question like, “Is there a statistically significant correlation between race and party affiliation?” In this case, party affiliation would become a discrete dependent variable, which means assigning arbitrary values for the purpose of numerical categorization—so, e.g., 0 = Republican, 1 = Democrat, 2 = other. The main independent variable race could be a so-called dummy variable (e.g., 1 = black, 0 = all other races) or discrete (e.g., 0 = black, 1 = white, Hispanic = 2, etc.). The dependent variable is then “regressed” on the independent variable, as well as any control variables (because other factors besides race may be important), to search for significance. Typically, the output will not be a graphic, like a bar chart, but rather a table showing a list of standard error and coefficient numbers. These numbers are then measured against a pre-determined value to check for significance.

    Granted, I’m glossing over a lot of information about things I know and things I don’t know; but in a very general sense this is what modern political scientists do. I uploaded an example of what you can expect to see in today’s academic journals. Here you’ll see a combination of formal theoretic modeling (the “sequential game” with branches) and a so-called probit model (the output tables).

    Anyway, my apologies for posting such a tedious comment, but there you have it. Personally, I dislike the quantitative approach. I don’t view it as particularly useful to understanding politics as such. But many larger universities promote the approach because it’s useful in securing grants from the government.
     
  4. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    So basically there are two differnt types. One type focues on Statistics, and another on philosphy correct?
     
  5. Anakrino

    Anakrino New Member

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    Basically, though some scholars of the liberal arts tradition distinguish between the types of non-quantitative studies. Earlier I mentioned Strauss, who once pronounced that while all political philosophy is political thought, not all political thought is political philosophy. To the extent that a liberal arts approach adheres to the agenda of political philosophy, it finds itself further removed from the world of statistics.

    My own view of the quantitatively model-based approach to politics is that it's glorified soothsaying. Most modern political scientists will quickly admit that statistical models are not meant to "prove" anything, nor are they intended to predict events with any guaranteed level of certainty. We then find ourselves asking the political scientist, "Well, then, what good is your work?" A frequent response is, "The output data help us better to understand such and such aspect [congressional voting, presidential speech making, etc.] of politics." But many of these aspects occupy that sphere of political inquiry accessible by common sense, prudence, and reason for ages; and if the models cannot guide us with certainty, it's not clear to me that they do much to support our traditionally non-quantitative methods.

    I suppose that reply turned into a rant, but I think there's an answer in there.
     
  6. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    I guess you're correct in one sense or another. Though stastics are useful, they are only predications. I think Philosphy has more to deal with the roots of the probelm, and then by using statistics, you can prove your point.
     
  7. Anakrino

    Anakrino New Member

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    It's this point in particular that I reinforce with my students. My typical spiel goes something like this: Quantitative political science can tell us whether Hitler's Nazi policies of genocide were more or less efficient, but it cannot tell us whether those policies were more or less good. Efficiency is more easily quantifiable because there is little dispute over how to recognize it; yet in the last 2,000 years of Western political philosophy, we have not been able to agree upon a single definition of ideas like justice and goodness. How do you quantify "justice"?

    To me, it's those "roots of the problem" you mentioned that constitute the soul of politics.
     
  8. Albert Di Salvo

    Albert Di Salvo New Member

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    The Quantitative Approach sounds like the elevation of technological process and procedure over ideological substance.
     
  9. Kranes56

    Kranes56 Banned

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    Right, but I think that the Liberal way, gives you what you determine as justice, and quantive supports your point of view. For instance, let's say I like Ice cream. A stuipd example, but it'll work. I could say that Ice Cream is the best desert in the world. I can then support that through facts saying it was the most sold desert in the world.
     
  10. Anakrino

    Anakrino New Member

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    This is a frequent complaint of those from the liberal arts schools. It's one reason, I think, that in an academic article containing quantitative methods you'll generally find (what I call) a lip-service section entitled "Theory." Most political statisticians are somewhat aware that every model needs at least some cerebral underpinnings in order to be plausible; however, it's notable that they title these sections "Theory" and not "Political Philosophy."

    Kranes56, it's here where your comment comes somewhat into play. I understand this may seem semantic but the distinction between a theory and philosophy is that the former accepts a concept or policy without much, if any, cross-examination; while the latter, by classical definition, is more interested in uncovering the truth of a matter.

    But now I worry that my bias against the quantitative approach is making me out to be a curmudgeon. So I'll say that I certainly see the attraction in temporarily abandoning the path of philosophy (the ethereal, the vague) for the practical world in which we all live. It's possible, I think, to do something like what you suggested, Kranes, which is to settle on at least one definition of, say, justice and then attempt to examine it within a quantitative framework.

    I suppose my official stance is this: if we are to arrange a hierarchy of study within the field of politics, I would prefer that the quantitative approach be made subordinate to the philosophic approach. This order, however, is being reversed in many larger institutions, and I find that worrisome.
     
  11. Trinnity

    Trinnity Banned

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    I think it's a shame politicians decide so much by polls for the sake of re-election, yet ignore us about our wishes against Obamacare, and for cutting govt spending, etc.
     
  12. magnum

    magnum Banned

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    Sadly, a politician's first priority is always to get re-elected.
     
  13. Anakrino

    Anakrino New Member

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    I agree that reelection concerns tend to weigh heavily on politicians’ minds. The political scientist David Mayhew once claimed that reelection is the “proximate goal” for all politicians, whether selfish or altruistic. I think that’s a legitimate proposition, and it’s useful for thinking about the tension between the two types of representatives: the one that claims to be a strict representative of the people and the one that claims to act on behalf of the people’s best interests, whether they agree with him or not.

    As for President Obama’s health care project, I’m honestly not sure whether he truly believes in its necessity or whether he’s simply trying to establish a legacy for himself. My suspicion leans toward the latter, mainly because there’s very little in his public speeches to convince me that this is a morally vital issue for him. Regardless, I am fairly confident that Obama isn’t perturbed by the idea of a massive federal bureaucracy. I think he’s a very common example of the post-mid-twentieth century American generation, which has little interest in cultivating a society whose people are both able and willing to tackle hardships when hardships arise.

    To quote George Will: “Progressivism's promise is a program for every problem, and progressivism's premise is that every unfulfilled desire is a problem.”
     
  14. Cogitari

    Cogitari New Member

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    Interesting topic. I wish I was here when it was active.

    I agree with Anakrino in that those pursuing the "quantitative" approach are not much addressing what I consider to be the most important issues, but are instead addressing ways to manipulate the electorate or otherwise obtaining advantage for one group or another.

    On the other hand, I think that there is grounds for the complaints that the liberal arts philosophy is too out of touch with the real world to be very useful. Do we really need perfect definitions of "good" or "justice" to come up with possible ways to improve people's lives?

    In effect, what I think would be most useful is for the two approaches to work together. If philosophers would re-state their philosophies in the form of scientific hypotheses, then these could (in principle at least) be tested by the guys making social measurements.

    The scientific method is a closed loop: theory => get verifying data => new theory => get new data...

    Usually one starts with an idea which one wants to check, but if some data set starts off a whole new realm of theorizing, there is nothing wrong with that either.

    Actually, I think that the theory side is already dominant, it is just that the ideas being verified are not what I (or I suspect, Anakrino) think are what really matters.
     
  15. JavaBlack

    JavaBlack New Member

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    I'm more of a believer in the quantitative view and I think political science should be focused more on those kinds of issues than on philosophy and such (which I think have more to do with... philosophy).
    But it's not all quantitative.
    Political Theory is obviously central.
    And qualitative methods have a large part to play in all social sciences (for many types of query, qualitative data is more useful).
    And some amount of philosophy needs to be understood.

    Really I think political science is just a branch of sociology though, so I think it should look pretty much like sociology (which is closer to the quantitative school, but with plenty of qualitative parts because social issues cannot be fully understood with quantitative methods alone).
    For that matter, sociology is a branch of anthropology.
    The divisions between the social sciences are anachronistic. Economics, psychology, sociology, and political science are all intertwined, and really all part of the same process.
     
  16. Automaton

    Automaton New Member

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    Jeez! Everybody has physics envy these days, it seems.

    Political science need not introduce game theory, math, optimization, etc. That's why we have political economy and, more generally, the method of economic analysis.
     
  17. Stay_Focused

    Stay_Focused New Member

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    I guess you guys are really old for not knowing the quantitative approach. Just joking and take no offense. :) Its rise was largely due to the use of econometrics to study economics phenomenon. Other social science discipline borrow such concepts because they love the rigor used in tackling very specific question.

    The quantitative appraoch is particularly effective when we want to test certain claims, esp cause and effect of policies. For instance if I say the boom in Reagan year and rise in eployment is caused regean tax cuts. logical reasoning itelf using Microeconomics fundamental is not enough. We need to gather real world date, try to find control and treatment group. The basic idead is to test social science claims like how we do in the natural science. Of cos it is not going to be as convincing as natural scientific experiemnts when it come to human bahaviour and our certain assumptions make in order to implify the real world into a model. But it is much better than nothing and it tells us something.

    But whereas if we are to deal with other questions such as philosophy or literature, such quantitative approach are of little use.
     
  18. Someone

    Someone New Member

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    I'm conflicted. On the one hand, having hard data and analysis to back up observations and predictions is a good thing. It helps build the credibility of the field. On the other hand, the rational choicers often go off on a foolish crusade to demonstrate their preexisting assumptions. They aren't really mathematically analyzing the political behavior of individuals, they're just looking for mathematical support for their pre-existing belief that all political actors are inherently rational.

    In other words, I applaud the methodology, I oppose the objective.

    The division is not so simple. There are plenty of traditionalists who make extensive use of game theory and survey research. For example, game theory might predict one type of behavior, but actual observations show that political actors are behaving unexpectedly. Without an understanding of game theory, the researcher wouldn't be able to see that. There's plenty of traditionalists who live on that sort of (rather common) incongruity. I think that trying to divide the traditionalists from the modernists by their methodology is probably going to lead down a problematic path, because both camps use both quantitative and qualitative methods. The difference mainly seems to be a difference of perspective; traditionalists operate from the perspective that political actors aren't inherently rational, modernists operate from the perspective that political actors are always rational.

    Both camps will use mathematical models, game theory, survey research, experimental research, and other qualitative tools to support their positions.

    When I was actively studying politics in school, my papers were almost always from a modernist perspective. When I actually got out and started working on campaigns, my experience taught me that the traditional approach tended to yield a more useful understanding of what is really happening.

    I don't think you can seriously study politics without using both qualitative and quantitative methods. You need many tools in the tool chest, so to speak. One to the exclusion of the other will not reveal the entirety of the situation.
     

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