Agency, Structure and Causality in Political Science: A Comment on Sibeon

Politics ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Recent Contribution ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ontological Turn

Researchers in political science are devoting increasing attention to the ontological commitments of their theories – that is, to what those theories presuppose about the nature of the political world. This article focuses on a recent contribution to this ‘ontological turn’ in political science ( Sibeon, 1999 ). Tensions are identified in Sibeon's account of the causal interplay between agency and social structure. It is argued that these tensions can be resolved by reflecting explicitly on ontological issues, in particular the causal efficacy of social structure, using a particular approach to the philosophy of the social sciences known as critical realism. The value of such reflection for the explanatory power of political analysis is highlighted.

A Critical Look at Critical Realism: Some Observations on the Problems of the Metatheory

2010 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juha Käpylä ◽  
Harri Mikkola
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Scientific Discipline ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ontological Turn

International Relations as a scientific discipline can be considered elusive and, in a sense, “under debate.” A distinctive feature of the theoretical debates of the discipline has been the various calls for different kinds of theoretical and metatheoretical “turns.” In this atmosphere, the return of ontologically oriented IR theorizing based on Critical Realism has increased in influence. The aim of this article is to problematize some of the formulations of Critical Realist metatheory, especially in relation to the notions of correspondence, retroduction and emergence. The article will argue that in the context of the social sciences, two things are highly problematic. The first problem is the quest for establishing “heavy ontological furniture” as a backbone for scientific research. The second problem is the attempt to combine the fallibility of human knowledge with the “getting things right” attitude based on correspondence-like concepts of truth. The article concludes with a recommendation for a healthy caution towards the Critical Realist aspiration for the “ontological turn” in the social sciences.

This Is Not a Turn: Canadian Political Science and Social Mechanisms

2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 295-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireille Paquet ◽  
Jörg Broschek
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Ontological Approach ◽  
The Social

AbstractMechanism-based explanations are gaining in popularity in the social sciences. Canadian political science has somewhat embraced these debates. Recent work has explicitly identified with mechanismic explanation and, at the same time, there is a point to be made about the compatibility of CPS's cannons with a mechanism-based understanding of causation. In this paper, we survey past and recent work aligned with this ontological approach. We demonstrate a heterogeneous engagement with the methodological literature regarding mechanisms and different understandings as well as uses of mechanisms in political analysis. This survey allows us to argue for the potential of mechanism-based explanations for CPS while also forcing us to advocate for a sober and discerning use of this approach.

Corporatism: A Growth Industry Reaches the Monopoly Stage

1988 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 813-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Panitch
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Historical Materialism ◽  
Structural Differentiation ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Capital ◽  
Growth Industry

At the end of the 1970s, the corporatism growth industry in political science passed from its competitive stage (articles in journals) to its organized stage (articles collected in books). In the founding text of the new stage, Trends Towards Corporatist Intermediation, Philippe Schmitter explained that corporatism was not itself a theory capable of generating explanations and predictions. Rather, it was a phenomenon that had to be theorized within one of the major competing paradigms of social structure and social change, which he identified as those associated with Durkheimian and Parsonian “structural differentiation,” the historical materialism of Weberian and Marxist-revisionist “organized capitalism,” and the Marxist political economy tradition wherein he located the theories of the state popular at the time. Yet, it was perhaps inevitable, given the accumulation of academic capital associated with growth industries in the social sciences, that Schmitter's (and others') sound advice would be ignored and that grandiose claims would be made for corporatism as a theory in its own right.

Theory and Research Process in Social Sciences in Nigeria: A Synthesis and Evaluation of the State of Debate in Political Science

2000 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Celestine O. Bassey
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distant Future ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Disciplinary Matrix

The disciplinary matrix of politics has been at the epicentre of the theoretical and epistemic ferment which has characterized the social sciences in the past forty years. This epistemic ferment found cogent expression in the Nigerian social sciences in the!980s and 1990s, as could be seen in the works of a number of scholars. By and large, however, the ‘search for a paradigm’ an inclusive attempt to comprehend the theory and practice of states’ behaviour which has characterized endeavours in the political science discipline, in the West and East is still an exception rather than the rule in the literature concerning Africa in general and Nigeria in particular. The ‘golden age’ of contemporary political analysis involving the best and brightest in both East and West is still a distant future horizon for Nigeria. This paper argues that the reason for this epistemic ‘underdevelopment’ of political science in Nigeria has multiple causes and is organically linked to generational thought forces which devalue theory and methoiiin political science, castigate Marxist epistemology and seek through intimidation to make ‘disciples’ rather than ‘scholars’ out of the young ‘initiates’ into the discipline.

Social Ontology and Model-Building: A Response to Epstein

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-192
Author(s):  
Nadia Ruiz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Social Ontology ◽  
Model Construction ◽  
Ontological Commitments ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social

Brian Epstein has recently argued that a thoroughly microfoundationalist approach towards economics is unconvincing for metaphysical reasons. Generally, Epstein argues that for an improvement in the methodology of social science we must adopt social ontology as the foundation of social sciences; that is, the standing microfoundationalist debate could be solved by fixing economics’ ontology. However, as I show in this paper, fixing the social ontology prior to the process of model construction is optional instead of necessary and that metaphysical-ontological commitments are often the outcome of model construction, not its starting point. By focusing on the practice of modeling in economics the paper provides a useful inroad into the debate about the role of metaphysics in the natural and social sciences more generally.

A Note on “Public Policy”

1973 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 661-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Vaison
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Policy Making ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Studies ◽  
Policy Analysts ◽  
Government Body

Normally in political studies the term public policy is construed to encompass the societally binding directives issued by a society's legitimate government. We usually consider government, and only government, as being able to “authoritatively allocate values.” This common conception pervades the literature on government policy-making, so much so that it is hardly questioned by students and practitioners of political science. As this note attempts to demonstrate, some re-thinking seems to be in order. For purposes of analysis in the social sciences, this conceptualization of public policy tends to obscure important realities of modern corporate society and to restrict unnecessarily the study of policy-making. Public policy is held to be public simply and solely because it originates from a duly legitimated government, which in turn is held to have the authority (within specified limits) of formulating and implementing such policy. Public policy is public then, our usual thinking goes, because it is made by a body defined somewhat arbitrarily as “public”: a government or some branch of government. All other policy-making is seen as private; it is not public (and hence to lie essentially beyond the scope of the disciplines of poliitcal science and public administration) because it is duly arrived at by non-governmental bodies. Thus policy analysts lead us to believe that public policy is made only when a government body acts to consider some subject of concern, and that other organizations are not relevant to the study of public policy.

Political Science and Public Administration: A Note on the State of the Union

1952 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 660-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roscoe C. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Russell Sage Foundation ◽  
Special Study ◽  
Woodrow Wilson ◽  
State Of The Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Original Essay ◽  
The Subject

By tradition public administration is regarded as a division of political science. Woodrow Wilson set the stage for this concept in his original essay identifying public administration as a subject worthy of special study, and spokesmen for both political science and public administration have accepted it since. Thus Leonard White, in his 1930 article on the subject in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, recognizes public administration as “a branch of the field of political science.” Luther Gulick follows suit, observing in 1937 that “Public administration is thus a division of political science ….” So generally has this word got around that it has come to the notice of the sociologists, as is indicated in a 1950 report of the Russell Sage Foundation which refers to “political science, including public administration….” “Pure” political scientists and political scientists with a public administration slant therefore are not alone in accepting this doctrine, which obviously enjoys a wide and authoritative currency.But if public administration is reckoned generally to be a child of political science, it is in some respects a strange and unnatural child; for there is a feeling among political scientists, substantial still if mayhap not so widespread as formerly, that academicians who profess public administration spend their time fooling with trifles. It was a sad day when the first professor of political science learned what a manhole cover is! On their part, those who work in public administration are likely to find themselves vaguely resentful of the lack of cordiality in the house of their youth.

Movimiento Hip Hop en Ciudad de Punta Arenas. / Hip Hop Culture in Punta Arenas

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (06) ◽  
pp. 67-81
Author(s):  
Pablo Tascón España
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
Current Action ◽  
The Social ◽  
Historical Root ◽  
The City

El presente estudio busca comprender bajo un enfoque naturalista cómo en un periodo denominado por autores de las Ciencias Sociales ( Bajoit, 2009; Sandoval, 2010) de “cambio cultural”, emerge el movimiento Hip Hop y su particular forma de expresión en la ciudad de Punta Arenas. La investigación tiene un objetivo central y busca interpretar la relación entre la expresión contracultural y los jóvenes que son parte de tal, como así también sus significados respecto al ser actores del mismo. La investigación pretende identificar, entonces, la lógica de acción actual de los jóvenes y a su vez dilucidar si existe relación o no con la raíz histórica del movimiento Hip Hop, es decir una expresión de disidencia en razón de la estructura social establecida y las contradicciones que afloran de la misma. The following study aims to understand under the naturalist approach how in a period called for authors of the social sciences (Bajoit, 2009; Sandoval, 2010) of “cultural change”, emerges the Hip Hop movement and its particular form of expression in the city of Punta Arenas. The research has a main objective and seeks to interpret the relation between the expression counterculture and the young people that are part of it, likewise the meaning concerning to be actors of it. The research pretends to identify the logic of current action of the youngsters and at the same time elucidate if there is a relation or not with the historical root of the movement “Hip Hop”, i.e. an expression of dissent aiming with the social structure established and the contradictions that came out from itself.

The Everyday in a Time of Transformation: Exploring a Single South African Lifeworld after 20 Years of Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-54
Author(s):  
P. Conrad Kotze ◽  
Jan K. Coetzee
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Contemporary Debate ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Ontological Turn ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Epistemological Framework

Transformation has come to be a defining characteristic of contemporary societies, while it has rarely been studied in a way that gives acknowledgement to both its societal effects and the experience thereof by the individual. This article discusses a recent study that attempts to do just that. The everyday life of a South African is explored within the context of changes that can be linked, more or less directly, to those that have characterized South Africa as a state since the end of apartheid in 1994. The study strives to avoid the pitfalls associated with either an empirical or solely constructivist appreciation of this phenomenon, but rather represents an integral onto-epistemological framework for the practice of sociological research. The illustrated framework is argued to facilitate an analysis of social reality that encompasses all aspects thereof, from the objectively given to the intersubjectively constructed and subjectively constituted. While not requiring extensive development on the theoretical or methodological level, the possibility of carrying out such an integral study is highlighted as being comfortably within the capabilities of sociology as a discipline. While the article sheds light on the experience of transformation, it is also intended to contribute to the contemporary debate surrounding the current “ontological turn” within the social sciences.

Political Science as a Discipline: A Statement by the Committee on Standards of Instruction of the American Political Science Association

1962 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-421 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel A. Almond ◽  
Eric C. Bellquist ◽  
Joseph M. Ray ◽  
John P. Roche ◽  
Irvin Stewart ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Psychology ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Conceptual Schemes ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Factual Data ◽  
Science Association

Political science is a basic discipline in the social sciences. Although it must necessarily maintain close scholarly association with the disciplines of history, economics, sociology, anthropology, geography, and social psychology, political science cannot be considered a part of any of these other social sciences. Political science has its own area of human experience to analyze, its own body of descriptive and factual data to gather, its own conceptual schemes to formulate and test for truth.

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