CPO Notes Principle of Comparative Politics Ch 2 What is science o o o It s not facts and not a body of knowledge science is a method for discovering truth relies on criticism and requires allowing for the possibility that our theories and claims are wrong is the thing that distinguishes science from nonscience o Falsifiability o Scientific statements must be falsifiable all scientific statements must be potentially testable There can be an observation that falsifies or refute our theory o Non falsifiable statement Tautologies a statement that is true by definition Ex strong states are able to implement policies If we define strong states as states that successfully implement policies then this statement is tautologies Statements about unobservable phenomena this doesn t mean that non science is nonsense o Scientific method describes the process by which scientists learn about the world 1 Question 2 Theory 3 Implications hypothesis 4 Observation test hypothesis 5 Evaluation o Theory a set of logically consistent statements that tell us why these things we observe occur a model informal or formal very simplified Theory construction Consider the puzzle Who What Why o Hypotheses The expectations to be next deduce implications from the model other than those we set out to explain in the first place o Empirical Observation Test our claims examine the model s implications of the model are consistent with what we observe in the world around us difficult tests or critical tests o Evaluation If we observe those things implied by our theory then we say that our theory is supported We do not say that our theory is proven We look for evidence that will falsify our theory If we fail to observe the expected implications then our theory is probably wrong and goes back to reconstructing your theory o Scientific Process one way of explaining things science is tentative objective and public invites criticism and improvement Political science employs the tools of the scientific method to study the political word Comparative politics is a subfield of political science o Introduction to Logic Arguments are valid or not We are confronted regularly by people trying to convince us of certain thing through arguments Argument A set of logically connected statements typically in the form of a set of premises and conclusion o An argument is valid when accepting the premises compels us to accept its conclusion reject its conclusion o An argument is invalid if when we accept the premises we are free to accept or o One way to represent an argument is in the form of a categorical syllogism has a major premise minor premise and conclusion Major premise typically a conditional statement such as If P then Q Minor premise consists of a positive and then a negative claim about If antecedent Then consequent either antecedent or consequent conclusion claim Antecedent Valid Invalid Affirm Deny Chapter 3 Testing Theories Consequent Invalid Valid logical claims based on confining carry less weight than those that deny o o All of our knowledge remains tentative and cannot ever be proven o Theories vs confirming observations In order to falsify our theory we must start with implications derived from our theory and then find observations if not theory will never be wrong if the observations are consistent with our theory then we have greater confidence o Deductive learning formulates expectations based on a theory and then finds observations o Inductive learning start with observations find patterns that can be used to generate explanations potentially problematic relies on affirming the consequent theory is never exposed to potential falsification o Comparative Method observations of the word are collected and then used to develop general laws or theories a cause is a necessary or sufficient condition Necessary condition a circumstance in which absence the event in question cannot Y never happens unless X happens Necessary condition If you have chocolate you can make brownies But if you have chocolate that doesn t necessarily mean you have brownies o Sufficient Condition A circumstance in whose presence the event in question must occur Y always happens if X happens o Necessary Sufficient condition A circumstance in whose absence the event will not occur and in whose presence the event must occur Ex thunder lightning Mill method of agreement method of disagreement the systematic search for necessary o What type of observation would show that wealth is not a sufficient condition We would need to observe a wealthy country that is not a democracy As a result we need to use the method o Mill s Method Assumptions causal process must be deterministic a deterministic cause is one that always leads to the specific outcome we have identified all of the possible causes and they don t affect each other problem It is hard to know if we have ruled out all of the possible causes The method tells us what happens but not why something happens It tells us Y happened when X was present and so on but we do not know why o Comparative method revisited The problem that these scholars are relying entirely on the process of affirming the consequent invalid arguments Theories only need to be falsifiable Science can be done only when experimental manipulation is possible science is value neutral NO Science leads to certain and verifiable truths NO game theory Politics cannot be pursued in a scientific manner What is Politics o subset of human behavior that involves the use of power or influence power is involved when people can t accomplish their goals without trying to influence escape the influence How to study politics theory o one tools political scientists use to study is known as game game theory models the interaction between two or more political actors using forma math notation o In any game an individual s ability to achieve goals depends on other s choices Players actions are interdependent decisions based on other players and what they are doing Players are faced with choices available course of action small discrete Small number of players Players face a decision at a choice node payoffs distributed at age s terminal node payoff indicated how the players value each of the outcomes o Characterizing game behavior assume players are rational one main goal is to identify player s strategies strategy plan that specifies what a player would do under every possible circumstance an important solution concept for game is a Nash equilibrium a
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