The Study of Politics Constitutes a Science - Essay Example

Sakhina Sridharan Is Politics Science? 05 December 2009 Topic:  Is it correct to claim that the study of politics constitutes a science? Discuss withreference to case study research. Man as a political animal is as old as man as the social animal. Ever since family units evolved into communities, city-states and later into nation-states, there had to be some form of political action in terms of laws, rules and regulations – these ran concurrently with social edicts and codes of conduct. The word ‘Politics’ has evolved from the Greek word politike, meaning ‘having to do with the affairs of the polis. Polis is usually translated as ‘city-state.’ 1 Down the ages, as society and indeed the state became more complex so did the various studies concerning man and his multifarious activities like philosophy, economics, natural sciences, history, psychology and of course politics. The Renaissance saw the enquiring minds of Europe and no doubt earlier, where advanced cultures existed (pre-renaissance), delving into studies in various disciplines that were analysed and documented, until the latter half of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth century saw the thrust towards making studies of most disciplines empirical, meaning that information had to be gained by experience, observation or experiment2. Studies conducted had to follow certain set criteria and measurements to be valid. In the modern state, for proper planning, such was the demand. Many North American political scientists, notably Jon R Bond, believe that a ‘hard science of political behaviour’ is possible and someone would come along and do for political science what Newton has done for physics3. In an essay on this subject by James W. Skillen, he quotes Bond as saying that, ‘the beginning of scientific enquiry is the fact/value dichotomy’ and that ‘the core goal of scientific methods is hypothesis testing and theory building that would yield quantifiable results’4. Indeed, one cannot dispute the fact that without such empirical studies, in terms of politics, economics, sociology and natural sciences amongst others, that planning commissions of various authorities worldwide would have been successful in the implementation of their programmes. Much of the developed and developing world relies on these studies to implement development programmes with a view to pre-empting failure. Statistics, objective data, all factual and tangible rule the day. However, the question of how accurate we are, when the human element is involved is a question for debate. Here is a discipline that is dependent on so many vagaries of man. Kenneth Minogue, in his book Politics, aptly encapsulates this when he quotes staid and scholarly Thomas Mann and in this instance, a flippant W B Yeats. Mann remarked, “In our time, the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms”, to which Yeats ripostes with the following verse: How can I, that girl standing there My attention fix On Roman or on Russian Or on Spanish politics? 5 Divergent views and interpretations at every step of law-making or concepts, the excessive power of the Executive (king, oligarch, head of state, as the case may be) down the ages has been the norm rather than the exception. Rulers (executives) and individuals in the law-making bodies or legislatives have often clashed on interpretations. A notable case was that of Sir Thomas More, the author of Utopia, a statesman in Henry VIII’s England and a devout catholic, who collided with Henry on his refusal to accept the King’s supremacy over the church, for which he was ultimately framed and beheaded – did Henry need to divert the attention of his masses from the actual crux of the problem? That is, the pope had already given him a dispensation when he married Catherine of Aragon, his brother’s widow, was he (the pope) to ‘dispense with his dispensation’ so that Henry could now divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn? (Biographies notwithstanding, Robert Bolt’s Play, “A Man For All Seasons”, gives a historical and brilliantly sensitive study of this situation6. The Watergate case which brought down the US President, Richard Nixon, is another case in point7. Even going back to the time of citizenship of classical Greece, we see one of the greatest philosophers of all times, Socrates, having to give up his life because his ideas and thoughts on various aspects of life, including the political aspect appeared to clash with those of the Athenian executive. He was considered anti-democratic, anti-political and anti-state (Athens). He was already seventy by this time. He had gone to war on several occasions for his polis and had been commended for his bravery and conduct on each occasion,8 yet he was implicated during a difficult period in Athens (huge losses and suffering due to the war with Sparta). It was as if they needed a scapegoat or a sacrificial lamb to atone for the ills the society appeared to be facing – one can see the similarity between the situations of Sir Thomas More and Socrates here. Plato’s Apology and Crito, even in the last moments of the philosopher’s life, show Socrates’ attempts to educate the masses (hoi polloi). He was more concerned with ‘doing good’ for the people and the polis of Athens by abiding by its laws than working on the sympathy factor by parading his family before them and wailing for his exoneration by his jurors. He preferred death to staging such pathetic dramas – he had his ‘personal standard of virtue’ that did not allow such an exhibition. By contrast, the jurors view of ‘doing good’ and disbursing justice would have been the litigant’s (Socrates) plea of his position as a citizen and his integration into the society (family and friends) and the system. That Socrates did not play to their tune and persisted in being the gadfly, stinging the citizens of his polis awake to critical thinking, would have been ‘a bitter pill to swallow’9. Man is capable of contradicting his own beliefs or convictions – history and present day politics point to this aspect of man, over and over again. A policy espoused today may be refuted tomorrow depending upon the prevailing situation or popular stance. Minogue, in his Politics says, “Circumstances so change the colour of politics that what looks to a party like the right policy in some circumstances may look completely different a generation later”10. It is a known fact that a policy that suits one part of the nation or state or even town may be an anathema to the other section of the population. It is not possible, in politics, to have clearly defined formulae, precise sets of values and methods with which to arrive at certain conclusions. The same executive or law-maker who is talking to say, the Conservatives and Democrats, on the merits of a certain policy has to frame his speech in such a way that it is acceptable to one side and at least palatable to the other – whether he succeeds or not is a moot point. One generally, espouses a policy on the premise that it is ‘good’ for the state and its citizens, but as Thomas says in his Introduction to Political Philosophy: ‘A substantive theory of good, while it may contain straightforward empirical information, is typically such that people with the same empirical information can reasonably disagree about it. Note that this characterisation does not assume that all substantive theories of good must forever be matter of reasonable disagreement, only that such disagreement is, in fact and now, a regular predicament for their proponents’.11 To take this argument further, that the study of politics is not a hard-science, here is another variable. The United Nations (UN) was created to replace the League of Nations, after the disastrous Second World War with what was believed to be a better Charter. ‘Its Charter proscribed recourse to war by a member state except in self-defence and transferred to the UN – acting on findings of the Security Council – the right to make war…’. Other important aspects of the Charter were protection of minorities, observance of human and political rights and so forth. However, the UN also had to uphold the sovereignty of each member nation. Already, we have a contradiction here – how would the UN uphold a member’s sovereignty as well as ensure that they uphold, say, human rights if it does not have the right to intervene in the particular nation’s domestic affairs?12 Proposed plans for peace and initiatives in various parts of the world – notably the Middle East, have remained just that. Rules laid down, are not followed through as there are enough ambiguities and subject to interpretation, depending on which side of the contentious issue one may be on. It is certainly not as simple as conducting a case study or experiment in physics or chemistry based on certain set criteria. Furthermore, in reality, politics shares much more with other humanities disciplines such as philosophy, theology, sociology, history and so forth. The interdependence with economics – especially in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries – is an indisputable factor. Palmer & Perkins in their ‘International Relations’ reiterate the interdependence of these two disciplines, ‘…for today much of the subject matter of international relations is economic in character…In the final analysis, perhaps, political considerations may outweigh the economic; …But, however strongly one may subscribe to the doctrine of the primacy of politics over economics, he must agree that it is difficult to make political sense out of economic nonsense’.13 There are too many schisms and isms in politics for it to be an exact science like physics. Even Bond admits that, ‘there is an art to politics…’14. Too many factors of the human element come into play when studies are made on any political aspect. When Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba published an extensive study on the political cultures of five very different political systems (the USA, Britain, Mexico, Italy and Germany) in the 60s, they came to the conclusion that political behaviour is best explained by shared core values and the ‘social trust’ between individuals and political institutions that underpin a successful civil society and in their study, Britain exemplified this. At the time, Britain still had a high degree of cultural homogeneity, a broad consensus on the rules underpinning parliamentary democracy and a respect for government that was often deferential15. No doubt, if one is to conduct a similar study in this day and age, the outcome would be quite different! It all boils down to perception. Perception, perception, perception! Here are excerpts from the Indian press on the climate change talks currently taking place in Denmark, which screams, “Denmark bats for the rich”. It goes on to say: The developed bloc is getting desperate to have its way …using Denmark, hosts and chair of the 15-day talks, as their stalking horse. On the second day of the talks here, the Danes came under fire from developing countries for playing a partisan role, favouring European positions at the cost of the developing world, and seeking to split the G77 ranks. In fact, Denmark has cast aside the neutrality it is supposed to maintain even before the talks formally began when it attempted to float a draft political statement out of the blue. By doing so, it pre-empted and sidestepped the UN negotiations. Then, as the talks began on Monday, news ran through the developing country delegates that the Danish government was working ‘more behind doors than in the meeting hall’ by discussing the draft statement with only friendly parties – all from industrialized countries….’16 No doubt, the Danish press will report this piece of ‘news’ in a totally different vein and other participating countries, in different degrees of accord or discord, depending on the degree of their stance in this matter of climate change. Getting back to politics as a hard-science, true, much empirical data is collected, studied in a reductionist manner, based on ‘hard-science’ assumptions and used in small areas and sub-areas, where they have been successful to a degree, but by and large, one has to accede that the study of politics cannot be called a hard-science. Even the fact/value dichotomy that political scientists like Bond and Robert Axel take for granted is not a self-evident starting point, but rather a presumption held on faith – a faith with its roots harking back through Max Weber to August Comte and Immanuel Kant.17 However, as a discipline that takes into consideration the ethical, religious, social, philosophical, economic aspects, not forgetting how dynamic human beings are in terms of thoughts, perceptions, emotions and so forth, with time and timing too being a major factor in decision making and action, it may definitely be called a science of the social category more than that of the natural category or hard-science. Word count : 2,083 (Content only, excluding title and endnotes) Endnotes: 1 Thomas, Geoffrey, “Introduction to Political Philosophy”, 1 Intro. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 2000 Print  2 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. 3Jon R. Bond, “The Scientification of the Study of Politics: Some Observations on Behavioral Evolution in Political Science,” The Journal of Politics, vol. 69, no. 4 (November, 2007), 905. 4 Skillen, James, W. Essay on “Is a science of politics possible: ©1997-2008 Metanexus Institute www.metanexus.net 5 Minogue, Kenneth, “Politics” (Foreword). New York: Oxford University Press Inc. 1995 Print 6 Bolt, Robert, “A Man For All Seasons” 1960 Print. 7 Minogue, Kenneth, “Politics” (40; Ch. 5). New York: Oxford University Press Inc. 1995 Print 8 Swartwout, Ross. "Socrates and the Politics of Ethical Individuality" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago, Illinois, Apr 15, 2004 . 2009-05-26 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p84010_index.html 9 Josiah Ober, “Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Citizen and Social Critic,” in Adriaan Lanni, ed., “Athenian Law in its Democratic Context” (Center for Hellenic Studies On-line Discussion Series). Republished in C.W. Blackwell, ed., Dēmos: Classical Athenian Democracy (A. Mahoney and R. Scaife, edd., The Stoa: a consortium for electronic publication in the humanities [www.stoa.org]) edition of July 31, 2003. Links to Plato’s Apology and Crito, may be followed from the above link. 10 Minogue, Kenneth, “Politics” (77; Ch. 9). New York: Oxford University Press Inc. 1995 Print 11 Thomas, Geoffrey, “Introduction to Political Philosophy”, 70; Ch. 2. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. 2000 Print 12 Calvocoressi, Peter, “World Politics 1945–2000”, xiv Introduction. Dorling Kindersely (India) Pvt. Ltd., Licensees of Pearson Education in South Asia. 2008 Print 13 Palmer, Norman D. and Howard C. Perkins, Ed. McKean Dayton D., “International Relations”, (532; Ch. 19). Third Edition (Indian), Scientific Book Agency. 1973 Print 14 Jon R. Bond, “The Scientification of the Study of Politics: Some Observations on Behavioral Evolution in Political Science,” The Journal of Politics, vol. 69, no. 4 (November, 2007), 905 15 Faulks Keith, “Political Sociology, A Critical Introduction” 108, Ch. 6. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. 1999 Print. See also Almond, G and Verba, S. (1963) “The Civic Culture”. Princeton: Princeton University Press 16 Nithin Sethi/TNN in The Times of India, Bangalore, Wednesday, December 9, 2009: 1 Print 17 Skillen, James, W. Essay on “Is a science of politics possible: ©1997-2008 Metanexus Institute. www.metanexus.net Read More