Epistemology and Methods
Variety in Political Research:
Plurality and Commonality
April 8 2008
Overview
• Theories of Scientific Growth/Accumulation of
Knowledge
• Paradigms
• Varieties in IR research
• What are theories?
• At the heart of social inquiry: causation
Accumulation of knowledge (Karl Popper)
• Science proceeds by putting forward empirically
falsifiable conjectures/theories
• These entail observational predictions (“potential
falsifiers”)
• These can be tested by means of observation and
experiment and either falsify or corroborate a theory
(“falsification”)
• Falsifiability demarcates science from non-science
• Scientific theories cannot be verified by experience,
but they can be falsified.
Accumulation of knowledge (Karl Popper)
• Steps (theory change as revolution in permanence)
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Scientists stumble over some empirical problem
A theory is proposed (conjectured)
Theory is tested by attempted refutations
If theory is refuted, new theory is conjectured
If theory is corroborated, then it is tentatively
accepted
Accumulation of knowledge (Karl Popper)
• The aim of science should be the development of theories with
high verisimilitude (likeness to truth)
False
statement
true statements
B
A
• B is closer to the truth than A and this constitutes progress
Accumulation of knowledge (Thomas Kuhn)
• Scientists protect the accepted theory, or "paradigm",
from refutation for most of the time
• They attempt to fit contrary phenomena into the
framework of the paradigm.
• Only when refutations become overwhelming, does
crisis set in
• A new paradigm is sought for and found
• A revolution occurs, and scientists return to doing
"normal science", to the task of reconciling
recalcitrant phenomena with the new paradigm.
Accumulation of knowledge (Thomas Kuhn)
Paradigm
Normal Science
Puzzle-Solving
Anomaly
Crisis
Revolution
New Paradigm
Accumulation of knowledge (Thomas Kuhn)
• Move from pre-science to science (adoption of a paradigm)
• Paradigm: A body of theories, values and methods that are
shared
• Long period of normal science starts / scientists explore, apply
develop and tease out the consequences of the paradigm
• Paradigm is not tested (under constant falsification)
• It offers guidance to attempt to solve problems (puzzlesolving)
• Paradigm expands
Accumulation of knowledge (Thomas Kuhn)
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Anomaly: persistent problem not be solved by paradigm
Stage of Crises
End of Crises by revolutionary transition (paradigm shift)
Paradigm shift is abrupt, like a social revolution
Incommensurability between competing paradigms (coexistence)
• New paradigm with different conceptual framework
• A new period of normal science emerges…
Accumulation of knowledge (Imre Lakatos)
• Lakatos tries to combine Popper’s and Kuhn’s images of
science in one model
• Methodology of Scientific Research Programme
• Lakatos sought to reconcile Popper and Kuhn by arguing that
science consists of competing fragments of Kuhnian normal
science, or "research programmes", to be assessed, eventually,
in terms of their relative empirical success and failure.
• Instead of research programmes running in series, one after the
other, as Kuhn thought, research programmes run in parallel,
in competition
• He sees RPs progressing, stagnating and degenerating
Accumulation of knowledge
• Hard science vs. social sciences
• Experiments vs. Observation
• General laws in social sciences are less certain
and object to change…(different life-cycle)
• Results of research can change the behavior
being studied making the theory less valid
(George&Bennett)
• Theories that can explain (processes and
outcomes), but more difficult to predict….
Paradigms
• Barbara Geddes: Paradigms and Sand Castles
• Abrupt changes in the Politics of Developing Countries
• Democratization process, freer markets, collapse of the Soviet
Union
• The limited usefulness of old theories in the study of
transitions from authoritarianism and change in economic
policies
• “Like elaborate sand castles paradigms have been built with
great effort and attention to theoretical detail, only to be
washed away by the tide of the next generation of graduate
students, whose research batters at the weak points of existing
paradigms until the theoretical edifice crumbles and
disappears”
Paradigms
• Messages:
• Inattention to basic issues of research design!
• Inability to build, develop and extend old theories (we
abandon theories (too) quickly)
• Uncritical acceptance of theories without systematic empirical
tests
• Example: the rise and fall of modernization and dependency
theory
• “The claim is not that theories/paradigms have been
overturned in some unusual way (…), but rather that evidence
was available that should have called them into question at the
time of their creation”
Varieties in IR research
• Varieties in IR research (epistemological
discussions)
• Epistemology: ideas about how to
develop and model knowledge of how the
world works
• The positivist vs. post-positivist tradition (the
two poles)
Varieties in IR research
• Positivist epistemology aim to replicate the methods of the
natural sciences by analysing the impact of material forces..
• Post-positivist epistemology rejects the idea that the social
world can be studied in an objective and value-free way. It
rejects the central ideas of neo-realism/liberalism, such as
rational choice theory, on the grounds that the scientific
method cannot be applied to the social world and that a
'science' of IR is impossible.
• The competition/war on methods: quantitative vs. qualitative
approaches
The positivist KKV view
• Focus is on empirical research sidestepping controversies
about the role of postmodernism, the nature and existence of
truth, relativism, and related subjects.
• We assume that it is possible to have some knowledge of the
external world but that such knowledge is always uncertain.
• The importance of research design:
– Rules are relevant to all research where the goal is to learn facts about
the real world
– Social science seeks to arrive at valid inferences by systematic use of
well-established procedures of inquiry
– Quantitative and qualitative research strategies can be reconciled
KKV continues
• Defining social research:
• The goal is inference (descriptive or explanatory inferences
based on empirical information)
• Procedures are public (make methods and logics explicit)
• Conclusions are uncertain
• The content is the method
What are theories?
• Grand theories/Schools of thought (neorealism,
neoliberalism, constructivism)
• Mid-range theories (e.g. democratic peace)
• Research programmes (e.g. rational design of IOs)
• Theories are general statements that describe and
explain the causes or effects of classes of phenomena.
They are composed of causal laws or hypotheses,
explanations, and antecedent conditions (van Evera
1997:7)
Theories (in the positivist tradition) consist of…
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Laws
Hypotheses
Explanations
Antecedent conditions
Variables
Law
• Observed regular relationship between two phenomena
(statements of regularity)
• These can deterministic (“if A then always B”) or probabilistic
(“if A then sometimes B, with probability X”)
Hypotheses
• A conjectured relationship between two phenomena
Explanation
• Explanation connects the cause to the phenomenon being
caused, showing how causation occurs
Antecedent Condition
preconditions, initial conditions
• A phenomenon whose presence activates or magnifies the
action of a causal law or hypothesis
• “A causes B if C is present, otherwise not or only weakly”
• Free markets lead to greater growth (if a certain level of good
governance is present)
Variables
• Variable: A concept that has various values, e.g. the “degree of
democracy” or “power” or “conflict”.
• A law: Democracies do not go to war against each other
(“Democratic Peace”)
• Independent Variable: Explanatory Variable: the existence of
a democracy (yes, no)
• Dependent Variable: War (yes, no)
• Intervening Variable: WTO membership causes X and X
leads to higher growth rates
• X: investor security
What is a good theory? (Van Evera 1997)
• A good theory…
• has large explanatory power
– Importance (Large variance in DV caused by small
variance in IV)
– Explanatory range (Number of classes of phenomena, e.g.
Olson’s theory of public goods)
– Applicability (how common is the cause)
• is parsimonious (few variables to explain effects)
• is “satisfying” (“I didn’t get enough votes”)
What is a good theory? (Van Evera 1997)
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is clearly framed (importance of explanation)
is falsifiable
explains important phenomena
has prescriptive richness
– “Capitalism causes war”
– “Teaching chauvinist history in school causes war”
Causation
• At the heart of social inquiry: causation – explanation…
• Cause: Events or conditions that raise the probability of
some outcome occurring (under ceteris paribus conditions)
(Gerring 2005)
• Mostly used logics:
• Deterministic causal arguments (necessary or sufficient)
vs. probabilistic causal arguments (likelihood)
• Causal effects (correlational account) vs. causal
mechanisms
Causation
• Multiple forms of causation (see Gerring 2005)?
…the pluralist view
• Generally:
• Direct causation: A causes B
• Reverse causation: B causes A
• Reciprocal causation: A causes B and B causes A
Varieties of Causation
• Causal equifinality (several causes act independently of each
to produce, each on its own, a particular effect)
• Conjunctural cause (a particular combination of causes
acting together to produce a given outcome)
• Non-linear cause (cause with takeoff or threshold level)
• Constant cause (cause operating continuously over a period
of time)
• Causal chain: many intermediate causes
• Critical juncture / path-dependent cause (cause at a
particular time with enduring effects)
Skopcol’s Theory of Social Revolution
(Goertz and Mahoney 2004)