2 Political Science: The Systematic Study of Politics

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Define political science.
• Describe the scientific study of politics.
The systematic study of the process of who gets what, when, and how - political
science - investigates the reasons behind the decisions governments make. For
example, political scientists investigate the degree of control governments choose to
exercise over various forms of communication, like your smartphone. Political
scientists examine both the ways individuals and groups seek to influence
governmental action and the ways governmental decisions in turn affect individuals
and groups.
Political scientists may not have lab coats or electron microscopes, but like other
types of scientists, they use theory, logic, and evidence in an attempt to answer
questions, to make predictions, or to arrive at conclusions. Some political scientists
strive to understand the fundamental laws of politics in much the same way
theoretical physicists seek to comprehend the cosmos for pure knowledge. These
political scientists try to uncover the universal principles of how humans and their
institutions aim to prevail in political conflicts. But most political scientists accept
that human behavior is not entirely deterministic (that is, perfectly predictable), so
they instead look for patterns that may enable them to predict in general how
humans and their institutions interact.
Other political scientists are more like chemists, who may use their knowledge to
develop and improve medicines or create more deadly toxins. These political
scientists aspire to improve the institutions or processes of government.
Some uses of political science are not so benign. Motivated actors can and have used
political science knowledge to manipulate voters and suppress vulnerable
populations. When people understand how political science works, they are less
susceptible to such manipulation and suppression.
So what is scientific about politics?
One way to think about whether politics is “scientific” is to focus on the content of
politics. Does political behavior follow general laws - that is, does it align with
universal statements about nature, based on empirical observations? Does politics
have the equivalent of Isaac Newton’s laws of motion (for example, Newton’s second
law is “force is equal to mass multiplied by acceleration,” and his third law is “to
every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”)? Not precisely, although
political scientists have at times claimed that such laws exist.

1
The sticking point is the word “universal.” Force always equals mass multiplied by
acceleration. To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. In
politics, it seems, virtually nothing is always the case.
If one defines science as a body of universal laws about an unchanging universe, then
politics is not and cannot be a science. Politics is not the same as physics. Empirical
political science seeks to identify regularities - what is likely to happen given certain
conditions.
Political science is probabilistic rather than deterministic. An event is deterministic
if it is possible to say, “If this happens, that will happen.” Events are probabilistic if
one can say only, “If this happens, that is likely to happen.” The sun coming up in the
east? Deterministic. Will it rain in the morning? Probabilistic. Will incumbents win
their next bid for reelection? Political science gives us the ability to estimate the
probability that they will win (again, given the rules, the reality, and the choices those
incumbents make).
So science does not require universal laws that explain an unchanging universe.
What science does require is a way to learn about the world around us: this way is the
scientific method. The scientific method seeks to understand the world by testing
hypotheses (for example “The world is round”) by systematically collecting data
sufficient to test that hypothesis and by making these hypotheses and data
available to others so that your work can be challenged or verified. Political science
uses the scientific method to understand the political world; political science
carefully and methodically uses logic and evidence to find the answers to political
questions.
A hypothesis is a tentative statement about reality that can be tested to determine
whether it is true or false - or, in practice, supported or unsupported based on the
evidence. “A candidate’s ethnicity influences the likelihood that they will be
elected” is an example of a hypothesis: ethnicity either does or does not influence
election outcomes. An important task of the political scientist is to determine
whether the evidence supports the hypothesis that they test.
The answers scientists find are always tentative, or uncertain. A hypothesis is
supported rather than true or unsupported rather than false. Additional research
may yield different answers as theories or methods improve or better data emerges,
but also because political behavior itself can change in response to what people learn
about it. The knowledge, for example, that politicians are likely to act in a certain way
given certain circumstances might lead politicians to change their behavior if they
believe that doing so will gain them an advantage. The specific knowledge
(“politicians in this situation will behave in that way”) may become obsolete even if a

2
broader general principle (“politicians will act strategically to advance their goals”)
still appears to be true.
There are two main, interrelated types of political science: normative political
science (also called political philosophy or political theory) and empirical political
science.

2.1 Normative Political Science

LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
• Identify what normative political science seeks to do.
• Discuss the primary methods political philosophers use to answer their questions.
• List the three main ways normative political scientists have tried to answer
questions like “What is a good citizen?”

In politics, what is good and what is right? How should power be used? What is the
public interest? These are tricky questions with multiple answers. One might think
of the “good” as that which is beneficial or helpful and “right” as what is true or just.
Power should be used to promote the public interest so that those in power use it to
benefit the people. Normative political science seeks to understand the meaning,
purposes, and goals of politics. It seeks to define how individuals should behave or
how institutions should be constituted. Those who study these issues are referred to
as political philosophers and share common interests with the broader discipline of
philosophy.
Normative political science considers an endless array of questions. What is a good
citizen? Do human rights exist and, if so, what are they? Who should rule? What
purpose should governments serve? Is there an ideal constitution and, if so, what is
it? What is social justice?
These questions cannot be answered by presenting evidence alone: there is no test
that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt what a good citizen is or that any
constitution is in fact ideal. So normative political science typically proceeds
primarily by appealing to logic and reason. Consider the question “What is a good
citizen?” Evidence alone cannot tell us what constitutes a good citizen. Is a good
citizen the one who always obeys the laws or the one who challenges the laws they see
as unjust? Reasonable people can - and do - disagree on this and almost all other
questions in political theory. But in order to determine through logic and reason
what it means to be a good citizen, evidence can guide judgments of whether
citizens are good (for example, if citizens are observed doing bad things, they would
not be good citizens).

3
4
2.2 Empirical Political Science

Unlike normative political science, empirical political science is based not on what
should be, but on what is. It seeks to describe the real world of politics, distinguishing
between what is predictable and what is idiosyncratic. Empirical political science
attempts to explain and predict.
Empirical political science assumes that facts exist: actual, genuine, verifiable facts.
Empirical questions are ones that can be answered by factual evidence. The
number of votes a candidate receives is an empirical matter: votes can be counted.
Counting votes accurately so that each candidate receives the actual number of
votes that were cast for them can be difficult. Different ways of counting can lead to
slightly different counts, but a correct number actually exists.
A fact may be disputed. There may be genuine uncertainty as to what the facts really
are - what the evidence really shows. Sometimes it is extremely difficult to gather the
facts. Do space aliens exist? That is an empirical question. Either space aliens exist,
or they do not. Some researchers claim to have evidence that space aliens are real,
but their evidence is not universally, or even broadly, accepted. One side of this
argument is correct, however, and the other is not. Evidence has not yet conclusively
determined which is correct.
Does the Russian government seek to interfere with American elections, and if so,
does its interference affect the outcome? The first part of the question is difficult (but
not impossible) to answer because when a country interferes in another country’s
domestic affairs it tries to do so in secret. It is difficult to uncover secrets. But the
second part of the question, does the interference affect the outcome, is almost
impossible to answer. Because so many factors influence election outcomes, it is
extremely challenging to determine which individual factors made any
consequential difference.
There are thus empirical debates in which people of good faith disagree about what
the facts are. In many cases, however, people do not want to acknowledge what the
evidence shows, and because they do not want to believe what the facts
demonstrate, they insist the evidence cannot be true. Humans often use motivated
reasoning, first deciding what is true - for example, “Gun control makes us safer” or
“Gun control makes us less safe” - and then finding evidence that supports this
belief while rejecting data that contradicts it.
In other cases, individuals and interests may actually know what the facts are, but
they are motivated by reasons of self-interest to deny them. The evidence is clear,
for example, that nicotine is addictive and harmful to human health. The evidence
is also clear that Big Tobacco, the largest cigarette companies, denied these facts for
years because to admit them would have put their profits at risk.

5
Former President Donald Trump, along with many of his supporters, claims that he
won the 2020 presidential election and that President Joe Biden was declared the
victor only because of massive voter fraud. All attempts to prove that fraud led to
Biden’s victory have failed: no evidence has been found to support Trump’s claims.
That these claims continue can be attributed to the fact that some individuals are
simply unwilling to accept the evidence, while others benefit from denying the
validity of it.
Empirical political science might find - based on the available evidence – that
individuals with more education or more income are more likely to vote. Empirical
political science would not consider whether this is good or bad; that would be a
normative judgement. Empirical political scientists might explain the link between
education, income, and voting by positing that better educated, more prosperous
individuals are more likely to believe that their views matter and that because of
that belief they are more likely to express those views at the ballot box. These
political scientists might also use their findings to make a prediction: an individual
with more education or higher income is more likely to vote than an individual with
less education or lower income.
Based on this finding, empirical political scientists make no claims as to who
should participate in politics. Questions about “should” are the domain of
normative political science. Moral judgments cannot be made strictly on the basis of
empirical statements. That members of one group vote at higher rates than another
group, for example, tells us nothing about whether they deserve to vote at higher
rates or whether government policies should be based more on their views as
compared to those who vote at lower rates.
From this finding, however, empirical political scientists may infer a
generalization. Generalizations are based on typical cases, average results, and
general findings. Younger adults, for instance, typically vote less often than older
adults. This does not mean that any specific young adult does not vote or that any
specific older adult does, but that these statements are generally true.
Generalizations can be helpful in describing, explaining, or predicting, but there is a
downside to generalizations: stereotyping. If the evidence shows that political
conservatives in the United States are opposed to higher levels of immigration, this
means neither that every conservative holds this belief nor that one must hold this
belief to be conservative. If data suggests supporters of abortion rights tend to be
women, it is not possible to infer from the evidence that all women seek more
permissive abortion laws or that no men do. In using generalizations, it is important
to remember that they are descriptive of groups, not individuals. These are
empirical statements, not normative ones: they cannot by themselves be used to
assign blame or credit.

6
Empirical political science can be used to make predictions, but predictions are
prone to error. Can political science knowledge be useful for predicting the outcome
of elections, for example? Yes. Given a set of rules about who is eligible to vote, how
votes can be cast, and what different categories of voters believe about the
candidates or policy options on the ballot, political science knowledge can be useful
in predicting the outcome of the election. Our predictions might be wrong. Maybe
people did not tell the truth about who they were planning to vote for. Maybe the
people who said they were going to vote did not.
In 2016, most political polls predicted that Hillary Clinton would be elected
president of the United States. Clinton did indeed win the popular vote, as the
pollsters anticipated, but Donald Trump won the electoral vote, against the pollsters’
expectations. Political science is imperfect, but it seeks to learn from and correct its
mistakes.
Empirical political science and political philosophy (or normative political science)
are distinct modes of inquiry. But this is not to say that they are conflicting, that one
is better than the other, or that political scientists do not use both in their research.
If empirical research discovers that certain groups are systematically
disadvantaged in the political process, the researchers may also argue that these
disadvantages are harmful or wrong and make a moral argument that the
disadvantages should be reduced or eliminated. Empirical research is often
inspired by normative concerns. Those who believe that human rights should be
better protected may undertake research to understand the political factors that
limit the protection of rights.