I have a hunch that some of the things people in general would like to know about politics already have answers, but that in other places, there's a genuine mismatch.
To try to find out, I'd like to start by asking you, the reader, what you think. Please consider answering one or more of the following questions, either in the comments, or by contacting me via other means.
1) When you think of political science, what do you think of?
2) What questions about politics would you like to know the answers to?
3) What questions about politics do you think political science can or should answer?
Also, feel free to give me general thoughts on political science. I am also interested in your thoughts on science. By the way, if you are a (political) scientist, please identify yourself as such, so that I can sort through what will no doubt be millions of responses.
1) I used to think political scientists were people who wanted to be politicians, but were too geeky (wonky?), and thus instead did a weird combination of history, statistics and opinion-driven analysis of past politics. I now know that only some of them are.
ReplyDelete2) Why does it seem that systems of government that are supposed to be responsive to "the people" apparently end up (over the long run) being completely unresponsive? Is Democracy really the worst form of government except for all the others? Are there ways to make Democracies more capable of effectively handling long-term structural problems? (They seem mainly good at either kicking the can down the road, or doing too little too late and then having a war to fix everything.) Is political "combat" a good way to prevent physical combat within a country? What's the true likelihood of WWIII in the next 100 years?
3) Hmm... I think political science can and should answer the questions I suggested above (along with a number of others), but I'm not sure that current methods of study in political science will suffice to answer them. (For instance, I would not place much money either on the general linear model or on long and largely opinion-driven monographs as being particularly useful.)
1) Political Science is the study of power, its control, and its dispersion. That's a textbook definition that I can never shake when
ReplyDelete2) a & b below
a)What are some of the most promising findings in the natural sciences that can be applied to problems in politics? For instance, Hirschleifer mentions in his paper "Anarchy And Its Breakdown" Hirschleifer mentions that studying the animal kingdom could draw insight in other fields, the one which stood out for me was the international system. Like the animal kingdom, actors "break up" into cooperation only when faced with a common threat otherwise they "break down" into amorphy. This behavior has been observed in animal societies (such as elephant seal herds and deer).
b)How would you explain the importance of quantitative modeling in political science to the layman or political scientists who can't read the papers?
3) I can't say I can really settle and say what questions political scientists should answer, although I do think they would be cool if they had something to do with politics.
I'm Elais, and I'm not quite a political scientist.
Oh, I forgot one question I'd like political science to answer: How should we organize the coming galactic empire to function when spread over 100,000 light years and to last for a billion blissfully functional years?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments. I think there are some interesting answers to Aaron's first question; as for the rest, they remain very, very open. Elais's questions also intrigue me. I think (and as I think Elais is hinting at) there are evolutionary approaches being applied across sciences to address questions of cooperation. I'll try to address these in future posts.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Aaron: if only I were Harry Seldon.