So, I'm here - waiting for the cable guy again. Hopefully, I'll have cable back soon.
Yesterday was a fantastic day. I sat around, finished reading Layer Cake. Good stuff. Today, I have to set up the last sherry hour of the year and start reading for my paper. On the whole, pretty low-key.
Now that I'm done with my (first) exam, I've been doing some thinking about my field in general. Sometimes I worry that my particular subfield - American politics - is changing the way that I think, and not in the good way.
As I've mentioned before, people sometimes get funny ideas about what political scientists do. We're not public policy specialsts, wonking out on the history of various bills. Rather, we tend to look for systems; we want to model how institutions, states, as well as citizens act and interact. Whlie it is not universal (just pick up The American Voter or any other piece by the so-called Michigan School), there is a general tendency to assume - as a foundational starting point - that all of these actors are, to a greater or lesser degree, *rational* actors. This is the part of my discipline that worries me.
In all honestly, I tend to generally share this assumption. But, it's a very bounded type of rationality. My sense, at least of voter behavior (which is what I'm more interested in), is that voters have preferences, and they are generally capable of identifying which candidates are closest to their preferences. Then, they vote for that guy.
However, this is a really limited view of rationality obviously. For instance, it in no way broaches the issue of *preferences.* In other words, I am not at all interesting in judging whether the issue preferences of voters are "correct" - because how can I measure that? How can I judge whether your preference for moral policy over economic policy is right? (Sorry Thomas Frank - you're a smart guy, but I gotta disagree with you on this).
Similarly, I would have to concede that preference formation *is* susceptible to elite/media influence. Of course, this is not inherently *bad* - as elites may be framing what are salient issues. Further, as long as there is a *competitive* party system, where elites are challenging each other, a fair amount of reliable information is available. (Obviously, in places where elites collude - like say around capitalism - there is less information. But really, *any* society is going to have some foundational assumptions, at least if it's going to *survive* it will).
But, see, there - already I'm doing what I'm afraid of. The biggest fear I have, and what political scientists seem to do a lot of, is taking a system that appears to be undesirable or broken in some way, and say: "No, no, no! This really *is* rational! This system really does work!"
A handful of cases:
1. Riker and Ordeshook 1968 - identifies a "calculus" of voting, where voters are more likely to turn out in a close election b/c their vote will count for more (re: they are more likely to be the median voter that decides the election)
2. Dahl 1989 [1961] - suggests that local politics is totally open to any person or group, and that elites are good leaders who are bound by ideas ("the American Creed"); essentially just looks at the system "as is" and declares it rosy - completely ignoring agenda setting and growth machine policies that *dominate* urban politics
3. Downs 1985 [1957] - argues that voting is irrational, b/c votes matter so little; also means collecting information about elected officials is not rational, as that has a higher cost than any benefit your single vote could purchase
4. Hansen 1991 - suggests that interest groups are just a good way for members of Congress to gather information; this book has been read as saying that interest groups do not matter [this is *not* what Mark meant though - interest groups reflect the opinions of organized groups, not all members of a constituency, so they are *distorting* agents in that way]
I do not want to suggest that all of these theories are *wrong.* In other words, it is true that it doesn't make sense for voters to spend hours houring over newspaper every day. Given their limited impact on the system, it makes much more sense to use various heuristics to make political choices. Rather, my fear is that in an attempt to to "explain" everything - political science just ends up accepting "what is" as "what should be"/"working perfectly" and stops having its normative, critical moments.
There is still a lot of critical work that goes on - in political theory, and even in the American politics field itself (folks like Clarence Stone jump to mind). After all, given how academia works, there is always someone willing to challenge your theory. [But, even some of those *challenges* are just positing another rational model.
] Further, Americanists do have normative commitments - mostly to full inclusion in the process and the capacity to participate (re: making sure that the resources - time, education, funds, information, and so on - necessary for particpation are readily available to everyone).
[Also - descriptive work itself *is* valuable. I would argue that just figuring out what is going on is a worthwhile pursuit. I'm just not sure it should be the only one, and given that, I'm even more confused about how to describe *and* challenge. It's dicey.]
But, on the whole, I do worry about just explaining away real problems as not problems but just "unique solutions" or "rational." It's a bit like the critique that William Julius Wilson makes of people who study the roblem of inner cities and their residents: these scholars often take any behavior, no matter how "pathological," and say that it makes sense given the environment. Wilson basically responds with: it may make sense, but that doesn't make it *okay* or *right.* I just don't want to become one of *those* political scientists that Wilson critiques.
I used to be a theorist, which is not the same (despite what some say) as being given a free license to be a pundit. But it is more normative. That was why I originally never cared for American politics. But what I like about American is the capacity to find what is actually going on in the world - or at least having the chance to get a sense of it. I just don't want to lose myself in measurement, description, and prediction. I want to maintain that critical moment too. So, my worry is that my subfield has changed how I think - that it has lead to my "explain away' serious issues. I feel like I'm searching for a balance: somewhere between reactionary left-wing normativity and the cool distance of a scientist.
Social science. What a fucking pain in the ass.
Yesterday was a fantastic day. I sat around, finished reading Layer Cake. Good stuff. Today, I have to set up the last sherry hour of the year and start reading for my paper. On the whole, pretty low-key.
Now that I'm done with my (first) exam, I've been doing some thinking about my field in general. Sometimes I worry that my particular subfield - American politics - is changing the way that I think, and not in the good way.
As I've mentioned before, people sometimes get funny ideas about what political scientists do. We're not public policy specialsts, wonking out on the history of various bills. Rather, we tend to look for systems; we want to model how institutions, states, as well as citizens act and interact. Whlie it is not universal (just pick up The American Voter or any other piece by the so-called Michigan School), there is a general tendency to assume - as a foundational starting point - that all of these actors are, to a greater or lesser degree, *rational* actors. This is the part of my discipline that worries me.
In all honestly, I tend to generally share this assumption. But, it's a very bounded type of rationality. My sense, at least of voter behavior (which is what I'm more interested in), is that voters have preferences, and they are generally capable of identifying which candidates are closest to their preferences. Then, they vote for that guy.
However, this is a really limited view of rationality obviously. For instance, it in no way broaches the issue of *preferences.* In other words, I am not at all interesting in judging whether the issue preferences of voters are "correct" - because how can I measure that? How can I judge whether your preference for moral policy over economic policy is right? (Sorry Thomas Frank - you're a smart guy, but I gotta disagree with you on this).
Similarly, I would have to concede that preference formation *is* susceptible to elite/media influence. Of course, this is not inherently *bad* - as elites may be framing what are salient issues. Further, as long as there is a *competitive* party system, where elites are challenging each other, a fair amount of reliable information is available. (Obviously, in places where elites collude - like say around capitalism - there is less information. But really, *any* society is going to have some foundational assumptions, at least if it's going to *survive* it will).
But, see, there - already I'm doing what I'm afraid of. The biggest fear I have, and what political scientists seem to do a lot of, is taking a system that appears to be undesirable or broken in some way, and say: "No, no, no! This really *is* rational! This system really does work!"
A handful of cases:
1. Riker and Ordeshook 1968 - identifies a "calculus" of voting, where voters are more likely to turn out in a close election b/c their vote will count for more (re: they are more likely to be the median voter that decides the election)
2. Dahl 1989 [1961] - suggests that local politics is totally open to any person or group, and that elites are good leaders who are bound by ideas ("the American Creed"); essentially just looks at the system "as is" and declares it rosy - completely ignoring agenda setting and growth machine policies that *dominate* urban politics
3. Downs 1985 [1957] - argues that voting is irrational, b/c votes matter so little; also means collecting information about elected officials is not rational, as that has a higher cost than any benefit your single vote could purchase
4. Hansen 1991 - suggests that interest groups are just a good way for members of Congress to gather information; this book has been read as saying that interest groups do not matter [this is *not* what Mark meant though - interest groups reflect the opinions of organized groups, not all members of a constituency, so they are *distorting* agents in that way]
I do not want to suggest that all of these theories are *wrong.* In other words, it is true that it doesn't make sense for voters to spend hours houring over newspaper every day. Given their limited impact on the system, it makes much more sense to use various heuristics to make political choices. Rather, my fear is that in an attempt to to "explain" everything - political science just ends up accepting "what is" as "what should be"/"working perfectly" and stops having its normative, critical moments.
There is still a lot of critical work that goes on - in political theory, and even in the American politics field itself (folks like Clarence Stone jump to mind). After all, given how academia works, there is always someone willing to challenge your theory. [But, even some of those *challenges* are just positing another rational model.
] Further, Americanists do have normative commitments - mostly to full inclusion in the process and the capacity to participate (re: making sure that the resources - time, education, funds, information, and so on - necessary for particpation are readily available to everyone).
[Also - descriptive work itself *is* valuable. I would argue that just figuring out what is going on is a worthwhile pursuit. I'm just not sure it should be the only one, and given that, I'm even more confused about how to describe *and* challenge. It's dicey.]
But, on the whole, I do worry about just explaining away real problems as not problems but just "unique solutions" or "rational." It's a bit like the critique that William Julius Wilson makes of people who study the roblem of inner cities and their residents: these scholars often take any behavior, no matter how "pathological," and say that it makes sense given the environment. Wilson basically responds with: it may make sense, but that doesn't make it *okay* or *right.* I just don't want to become one of *those* political scientists that Wilson critiques.
I used to be a theorist, which is not the same (despite what some say) as being given a free license to be a pundit. But it is more normative. That was why I originally never cared for American politics. But what I like about American is the capacity to find what is actually going on in the world - or at least having the chance to get a sense of it. I just don't want to lose myself in measurement, description, and prediction. I want to maintain that critical moment too. So, my worry is that my subfield has changed how I think - that it has lead to my "explain away' serious issues. I feel like I'm searching for a balance: somewhere between reactionary left-wing normativity and the cool distance of a scientist.
Social science. What a fucking pain in the ass.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
akirali:
I didn't know Layer Cake was a book. I really wanna see that movie, though I'm dissapointed the Matthew Vaughn dropped out of directing X3. Now we may get Brett "Rush Houre, Rush Hour 2" Rattner 
madman31:
My field is international relations. My research tends to focus on international environmental politics and sustainable developments in the third world.