Designing Social Inquiry
International Relations as Scientific
Endeavor: What is Positivism?
Jaechun Kim
TRACING THE HISTORY OF
“POLITICAL SCIENCE” AND
“INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS”

Genealogy of Political Science


Intl Relations is usually studied as a sub-field of
Political Science…
Origin and Evolution of Political Science (Study of
Politics)

Political Science (Study of Politics) started as part of
legal studies and study of history; Studying politics
belonged to the realm of law and history…

Political Science was not a separate discipline…

Advent of Behavio(u)ralism in Study of
Politics

We should do more than just studying laws and
histories; We should observe how the states
behave… and how politicians behave…

Look inside the system!: Observe what’s really
going on! Analytic focus should be on the
informal aspects of political life…  Behavioral
Revolution  Positivism  Political Science

Reaction to traditional legal and historical
approaches to studying politics…

Intl Relations as a distinct subfield of Political
“Science”

IR (as with the study of politics) used to be the study of
international laws and history of international relations
(i.e., diplomatic history)

Impact of behavioral revolution on IR  IR as a subdiscipline of Political Science

Behaviouralism  Positivism as dominant epistemology
in the study of politics…

Be like natural scientist! Or economist!

Invent and test positive theories…

Positive theory vs. Normative Theory: The Difference?

Positivism in International Relations – We
can study IR in scientific manner?

Can we? KKV  We can!

Is it possible to study IR scientifically?

WHAT IS SCIENTIFIC METHOD OR
POSITIVISM? WHAT IS SCIENCE?

One of the methods that lead us to find the
truth…

Science is not a panacea: Activities including
human interactions and emotions are difficult
to answer with scientific methods...

Other methods to find truths about
social life??

Intuition; Feel; Superstition

Divine revelation; Epiphany

Science – Having skeptical structure of
mind; skeptical attitude

Scientific knowledge can be accumulated;
communicated; and the scientific method can
be replicated; procedures should be public

Goal of Science is to explain; to make
inferences…

Explanation usually involves causation…


IV (Independent Variable)
CV (Causal Variable)
EV (Explanatory Variable)

DV (Dependent Variable)


QUANTITATIVE VS. QUALITATIVE
METHODS

Quantitative – large number of cases; N>20 – large
N studies.

Qualitative – one or several cases

KKV – Both quantitative and qualitative researches
can be systematic and scientific; Qualitative study
can be scientific as well!

It really depends on the nature of research
questions…

COMPONENTS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
DESIGN

Choosing a good research question - what is your
puzzle?


Should have real world implications (should be important in
real world)…in global affairs…

Should be related to the existing scholarly literature… 
literature review…

Choose a specific question rather than a broad one!
Clarification of concepts

Building hypothesis

What is hypothesis?

Reasoned speculation to your research puzzle

Building theories or theoretical (analytic)
framework

What is theory?

Reasoned speculation about your hypothesis

Good theory (or hypothesis) should

be testable (falsifiable)

be generalized

have observable implications

be parsimonious

Testing your hypotheses


Case analysis (single case study, multiple case studies, comparative
case studies…)
Statistical analysis

Collecting Data

What is data? Data – systematically collected
elements of information about the world (KKV)

You will have to report data collection process

Use footnotes, etc.

Validity: your data collection method should be valid

Reliability: your data collection method should be also
reliable

Be modest in your findings!

It’s OK to be wrong!