Introduction to Research Methods – Lecture 1

1. Introduction to Research Methods – Lecture 1 The history of the discipline of political science and international relations

2. Why intellectual history matters (1) • A disciplinary identity, its boundaries are shaped by its history • It legitimises some approaches and makes others marginal • Generates a sense of purpose and belonging

3. Why intellectual history matters (2) • Contemporary American political science is relatively uninterested in the concept of the state which is a central one in Europe • This in part reflects different modes of governing • But early American political science was shaped by a notion of the state derived from German ethical traditions • It was supplanted by a ‘protobehavioural revolution’

4. Hegemony of American political science

5. Where top departments are not • Asia • The Pacific • The Arabic world • Latin America • Almost completely absent from E-Central Europe and Russia • EU countries increasingly teach in English

6. Top ten in world • 1. Columbia (East coast) • 2. Harvard (East coast) • 3. Stanford (California) • 4. Ohio State • 5 EUI, Firenze • 6. UC, San Diego (California) • 7. UC, Irvine (California) • 8. Indiana • 9. Princeton (East coast) • 10. Yale (East coast)

7. Numbers • 20,495 political scientists in US • 10,386 are academics • One third are women • 6 per cent African American, 4 per cent Asian American, 3 per cent Latino • .3% are American Indian or Alaskan Native (1.4% of US population)

8. Early origins in US • 1880: School of Political Science at Columbia University in NY established by John Burgess • John Hopkins, Baltimore • 1903: American Political Science Association founded • Woodrow Wilson is early president, becomes President of USA

9. Driving forces • Expansion of undergraduate population from 54,300 in 1870 to 597,200 in 1920 creates a demand for new courses • Dominant subject of theology in old colleges challenged by science, e.g., Darwinism • Progressive movement, urban reform movement of middle class

10. Driving forces (2) • Need to socialise wave of immigrants in US in last quarter of 19th century into democracy. Civics in schools. • Strong German influences on development of subject in US, reinforced in inter-war period by refugees from Nazis • Cannot take law as a first degree in the USA

11. Interwar period: Chicago school dominates • Turn away from state, need to realise political realities of social heterogeneity • Protobehavioural revolution reacting against formal, legal and historical methods of inquiry of 19th century using new methods of inquiry • Times were not auspicious for a scientific revolution

12. Behavioural revolution of 1950s/60s • Times were right – nuclear physics, space exploration, Cold War competition with Soviet Union, Second World War advances in survey techniques • Aspiration to make political science a ‘normal’ science, free of value judgements • Political reality existed and could be understood through the objective techniques of scientific inquiry (psychology as model)

13. Main tenets of behaviouralism • Sought to discover uniformities in political behaviour by systematically collecting and recording data in a manner that encouraged replication • Quantification became important – and remains so • Political science has no concern with moral questions, or at least should keep them separate

14. Why behaviouralism failed • Pointed out that not observing behaviour but reports of people’s behaviour • Difficult to come up with useful generalisations as so much behaviour is contingent or represents adaptation – model of natural science flawed • Vietnam War, crisis in US institutions, accusations of conservatism, Caucus for New Political Science (1967), Easton calls for post-behaviouralism (1969)

15. Legacies of behaviouralism • Study of politics should be theory oriented • Should be self-conscious about methodology • Should be interdisciplinary • Strong desire for methodological rigour remained – rational choice (versus historical institutionalists)

16. Perestroika movement (2000) • Respect for political theory and comparative politics, concern that political science in US was too narrowly behavioural and quantitative – united by opposition to monopoly claim of scientific approach • Consider that behaviouralists and rat choice people think that only they are doing hard science and that everything else is dated

17. Perestroika (2) • Argue that some scholars claim that rational choice institutionalism should be basis of all analysis • Questions about engagement with politics and policy makers, practice of politics • ‘English school’ in international relations has favoured normative enquiry

18. British political science • In 19th century Benthamite advocates of a deductive (theory led) approach and a science of legislation lost out to advocates of an inductive approach based on history • LSE set up to teach colonial administrators, included many reformers prominent in the Labour Party, public intellectuals

19. Oxford • Modern Greats established in 1923, part of a humane tradition that emphasised classics, literature and history • ‘The subject is taught by a very few specialists and a large number of philosophers and historians who approach it with varying degrees of enthusiasm or distrust’ • As late as 1966 40% of teachers of politics in universities in Britain had taken history as first degree

20. Post-Second World War • Political Studies Association formed in 1950 • Emergence of Manchester department headed by W J M Mackenzie (eclecticist), but made politics more social scientific • Prevalence of Whig interpretation of history, at worst nostalgia for political order before 1st World War • Mixture of moral philosophy (Oxford) and constitutional history (Cambridge)

21. Things start to change • Colonial constitutions fail • Britain is gripped after 1960 (the year of the Brighton Revolution) by a sense of relative decline and the failure of its institutions • University expansion expands political science especially in plateglass universities • Technocratic reformism

22. Political science comes to Warwick

23. Wilfrid Harrison • First editor of Political Studies • Taught at Oxford, civil service in war, then Liverpool • Founded Warwick department • Strong believer in tolerant eclecticism and no dominant paradigm

24. Sceptical professionalism • Technocratic reformism comes to an end in mid to late 1970s • 1980s a difficult decade for UK universities and political science • 1992 sees new universities, subject continues to expand • Formation of European Consortium for Political Research in 1970

25. Political science in Europe • Public law tradition predominates in some countries, e.g., France, Italy • Subject stunted in countries that were dictatorships, e.g., Greece, Spain • Particularly strong in Nordic countries (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark) also NL, Germany

26. Chilean political science association meets in Santiago

27. Political science in Latin America • Severely disrupted by authoritarian periods in Argentina, Brazil, Chile • Influence of FLACSO, founded by Unesco in 1957 • Influence of Catholic thought: St. Thomas Moore Dept. of Politics • Importance of sociology • Intrusions of partisan politics

28. Dominance of US political science • Neglect of state • Often very inward looking, state level studies • Does a lot of work on EU, but model implicitly a US federal one • APSA is first loyalty for many British political scientists, 7,000 at annual convention

29. Future developments • European wide association following Bologna reforms • Recognition of complementary nature of quantitative and qualitative techniques • More emphasis on interdisciplinarity • Increasing internationalisation