Compare how Interpretivist and Behavioralist Political Scientists Approach the Analysis of Politics - Essay Example

In other words, we can say that philosophy of a political scientist may change the meaning of a particular incident of political significance. Thus understanding different philosophies and methodologies is of prime importance in order to compare how political scientists approach the analysis of politics. In this connection interpretivist or behavioralist political scientists are two important analyst groups. Depending upon various philosophies and methodology these scientists may analyze same situation differently.

Moreover, the factors which may have a direct or indirect impact on the logic and thought development process of a political scientist are innumerable. Among these factors there may be the personal influences of the analyst and the way he construct his thoughts on various situations that may arise in politics. However, this subjectivity in an analytical work may damage its authenticity being an unbiased analysis. Political scientists are no exception to this subjectivity and interpretivist or behavioralist scientists may deduce mutually conflicting conclusions while contemplating a specific situation or scenario.

This paper will investigate and compare how a difference of approach among interpretivist or behavioralist political scientists will affect respective analysis. . is somewhat foreign to interpretivism. They tends to interpret the societies and politics as an human interaction science, where people and their action are considered purely in relation to social sciences like history, business administration, political sciences, sociology, economics, education etc. Interpretivism is a process that enables a social scientist to freely interpret the political scenario or political actions of an individual without any external input or clarification.

In other word interpretivist scientist may interpret an action, however this interpretation is subjective to various facts, methods and reactions. (Livesey, 2006). Zalta (2008) defines it as, “ ‘Interpretivist’ because the information that is gathered is interpreted. Interpretivism is a thesis about what determines legal rights and duties.” The interpretivist scientists adopt the qualitative approach of research in order to determine qualitative issues in social and political sciences and answers how and why a certain situation can be interpreted for known and unknown political issues.

This interpretation may range from factual and circumstantial to purely theoretical grounds. On the other hand behaviorist scientists prefer to study the societies and politics in a more systematic way. They adopt the course of proper research and analyze the political scene on the basis of empirical data and application of behavioral sciences. Gottweis (as cited in Chilcote, 1981, p. 13) states, “The behaviorists emphasized the importance of systematic empirical research, conceptualization at various levels of abstraction, and hypothesizing and test by empirical data.

” In efforts to formulate the study of political sciences, a behaviorist scientist preferably treat the