Political Science and the Uses of Functional Analysis

1968 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James Gregor
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Alternative Interpretation ◽  
Cognitive Effort ◽  
Formal Calculus ◽  
Specialized Language ◽  
System 2 ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
Reliable Knowledge ◽  
Partial Formalization

Political science, as an empirical enterprise, shares with the other behavioral or social sciences at least one characteristic feature: partial formalization. For a science to most reliably discharge its two principal functions, explanation and prediction, statements embodying acquired knowledge must be systematically organized in subsumptive or deductive relations. Minimally, a set of such systematically related propositions, which include among them some lawlike generalizations, and which can be assigned specific truth value via empirical tests, is spoken of as a theory. A theory, in a substantially formalized system, includes as constituents (1) an uninterpreted or formal calculus which provides for syntactical invariance in the system, (2) a set of semantic rules of interpretation which assign some determinate empirical meanings to the formal calculus thereby relating it to an evidential or empirical base, and (3) a model for the uninterpreted calculus, in terms of more or less familiar conceptual or visualizable materials, which illustrates the relationships between variables in structural form, an alternative interpretation of the same calculus of which the theory itself is an interpretation.The virtues of standard formalization need hardly be specified. For our purposes here it is sufficient to indicate that formalization seeks to satisfy the minimal requirements of any serious knowledge enterprise: to provide for syntactical and semantic invariance without which reliable knowledge is simply not conceivable. The language shift, exemplified in any cognitive effort, from ordinary to specialized language style is the consequence of attempting to reduce the vagueness, ambiguity and tense obscurity that afflicts common speech.

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.

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.

scholarly journals General Environment Of World

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 533
Author(s):  
Mohammed Viquaruddin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Present System ◽  
Multidimensional System ◽  
Liberal Vision

This paper is an attempt regarding the general social/economical/ecological/political and more environments of world certainly with multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary approach. It is discussed that the problems of fore further can besolved through facts/reasoning/science/environment/social sciences etc. As beinga student of political science even peace science a try that can come into existenceor can be practiced only through many dimensions. The philosophy is developedto resist with whatever means we have in hand and are willing to fight for a betterscenario which would be something out of our reach! But can achieve through apositive and plural system not certainly perfect but different in its approach.Achievement to the threats and problems to the liberal vision are pervasive and thesystem is in much greater problematic that is commonly supposed. Protecting/Preserving/ Commanding it in the coming century and beyond will be easier saidthan done! We do not foresee the renaissance of any type we should be sure aboutthat alternative World Multidimensional System (WMS) could reasonably competewith the present multidimensional system on theoretical or practical grounds. It isnot enough that this system display substantial practical advantages and genuinetheoretical coherence. No one can deny that world get profit from present system.

scholarly journals Znaczenie empirii jako podstawy wyjaśniania, prognozowania i praktyki w naukach społecznych

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-49
Author(s):  
Sebastian Kozłowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Scientific Paradigm ◽  
Research Results ◽  
Contemporary Research ◽  
Scientific Dispute ◽  
The Subject

The considerations presented in the article are to be an impulse to reflect on the foundations on which modern scientific discoveries are based. The aim of the analysis is to present a number of doubts as to the accuracy and perfection of contemporary research results in social sciences, in particular in the discipline of political science. In social reality there are still many limitations both on the part of the human being as the subject examining reality and the imperfections of the tools he uses. The article discusses attitudes towards scientific dispute consisting in the clash of the scientific paradigm based on empiricism and positivism with postmodern interpretivism within the hermeneutic paradigm will soon end.

scholarly journals Etnografia wielostanowiskowa: inspiracje metodologiczne do badań nad politycznością

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-98
Author(s):  
Wojciech Łukowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Social Mobility ◽  
Small Town ◽  
Spatial Mobility ◽  
New Challenges ◽  
Political Behaviors ◽  
Globalized World

Spatial and social mobility in an increasingly globalized world is associated with new challenges for social sciences, including political science. This also applies to methods and methodology. The article aims to reveal the cognitive potential that lies in the use of multi–sited ethnography for research on politics and on the study of political behaviors (das Politische). The utility of this approach is illustrated on the basis of the research on social and spatial mobility of small town residents conducted with the use of this method.

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.

Area Studies and the Disciplines: A Rejoinder

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-31
Author(s):  
John W. Harbeson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Scientific Knowledge ◽  
American Political Science Association ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Area Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Political Science ◽  
Science Association

Robert Bates’ letter entitled “Area Studies and the Discipline” (American Political Science Association, Comparative Politics 1, Winter 1996, pp. 1-2) uses the occasion of the SSRC’s abolishing of area committees to announce that “within the academy, the consensus has formed that area studies has failed to generate scientific knowledge.” As someone who has done some of his most important work on African development issues, Bates deplores declining investment in area studies as a “loss to the social sciences, as well as to the academy,” at an inopportune moment, “just when our [political science] discipline is becoming equipped to handle area knowledge in a rigorous fashion.”

El periodismo collage de Ryszard Kapuscinski | Ryszard Kapuściński’s Collage Journalism

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah V. Platt
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Political Science ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Epistemic Responsibility ◽  
Significant Events ◽  
Controversial Topic ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
Film And Literature

Resumen El periodismo collage desarrollado por Ryszard Kapuściński se ha tornado controversial por su difícil clasificación de género y por combinar distintas técnicas y enfoques pertenecientes a varias disciplinas. En este artículo se analizará la influencia de los principales trozos interdisciplinarios que componen la totalidad de la obra de este autor: la fotografía y la poesía, las ciencias sociales, la politología, el cine y la literatura. Como marco teórico se empleará la fenomenología y se expondrán algunos ejemplos de sus obras cumbres para mostrar cómo se ponen en práctica las técnicas interdisciplinarias del collage. La obra kapuścińskiana, a pesar de ser completamente heterogénea en cuanto a su estructura, comparte una esencia en común: retrata la realidad sociopolítica de algunos de los acontecimientos más relevantes del siglo XX, a la vez que proyecta un recuento muy íntimo de las experiencias del autor en el campo. La responsabilidad epistémica del autor para con sus sujetos de trabajo está siempre presente, dando espacio a sus lectores a juzgar por ellos mismos la credibilidad de su postura y de sus historias. Palabras clavePeriodismo literario;  Ryszard Kapuściński; interdisciplinariedad; collageAbstract Ryszard Kapuściński´s collage journalism has become a controversial topic because of its hard to define genre and because it combines different techniques and approaches that pertain to various disciplines. In this article we will analyze the principal interdisciplinary influences in the author´s work: photography and poetry, social sciences, political science, film, and literature. In order to attest how the visual collage journalism techniques are put into practice, some examples from the author’s main books will be brought to light. Although Kapuściński’s work’s structure is heterogeneous, a common essence is observed: the vivid depiction of some of the most significant events of the 20th century through the author´s intimate experiences in the field. Moreover, Kapuściński´s epistemic responsibility with his work subjects is ever-present, providing space for his readers to judge his credibility for themselves. KeywordsLiterary journalism; Ryszard Kapuściński; interdisciplinary; collage

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