The Perestroikan challenge to social science

Politics and Society

Volumn 31, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 163-184

  Laitin, David D ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Bent Flyvbjerg; Mr. Perestroika; Narrative; Philosophy of social science; Phronesis

Indexed keywords

EID: 0037225446     PISSN: 00323292     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0032329202250167     Document Type: Review

References (52)

1. "Mr. Perestroika" is the pen name of an anonymous insurgent within the political science discipline. His movement began with an e-mail sent to friends and colleagues in October 2000, but it spread like a bush telegraph, precipitating a mass mobilization within the discipline against the practices of the American Political Science Association and its lead journal, the American Political Science Review. The ferment first received attention in an article in the New York Times (5 November 2000), followed by coverage in the Chronicle for Higher Education (17 November 2000). Movement members remain active in seeking to alter the discipline organizationally and intellectually.
2. Bent Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter: Why Social Inquiry Fails and How It Can Succeed Again (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
3. 3. In his review of this book for the American Political Science Review (March 2002), Stephen White emphasizes that Flyvbjerg's book ought to serve as the foil for a fully articulated anti-Mr. Perestroika response.
4. Flyvbjerg equivocates throughout the book on the question of whether scientific work has any merit in the study of the social world. On one hand, he writes, "it is ... not meaningful to speak of 'theory' in the study of social phenomena, at least not in the sense that 'theory' is used in natural science" (p. 25). On the other hand, he acknowledges the value of "attempts at formal generalization, for such attempts are essential and effective means of scientific development" (p. 76). Despite these occasional nods to the value of a social science (see also formulations on pp. 49 and 87), his major theme is that "we must drop the fruitless efforts to emulate natural science's success in producing cumulative and predictive theory" (p. 166). He does not provide evidence on the degree to which natural science research meets his standards.
5. This tripartite approach recommended here is more fully developed in David D. Laitin, "Comparative Politics: The State of the Subdiscipline," in Political Science: The State of the Discipline edited by Ira Katznelson and Helen Milner (New York: Norton, 2002).
6. I know of three prominent contributions along these lines. Robert Axelrod (political science) has collaborated with William D. Hamilton (biology), "The Evolution of Cooperation," Science (1981) New Series, (March 27) 211 (4489): 1390-96. Reinhard Selten (economics) has collaborated with Peter Hammerstein (biology) in "Game Theory and Evolutionary Biology," in Handbook of Game Theory, edited by Robert J. Aumann and Sergiu Hart (Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Elsevier, 1994), vol. 2, 929-93. Robert Boyd (anthropology) has collaborated with Peter J. Richerson (ecology) in Culture and the Evolutionary Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
7. I know of three prominent contributions along these lines. Robert Axelrod (political science) has collaborated with William D. Hamilton (biology), "The Evolution of Cooperation," Science (1981) New Series, (March 27) 211 (4489): 1390-96. Reinhard Selten (economics) has collaborated with Peter Hammerstein (biology) in "Game Theory and Evolutionary Biology," in Handbook of Game Theory, edited by Robert J. Aumann and Sergiu Hart (Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Elsevier, 1994), vol. 2, 929-93. Robert Boyd (anthropology) has collaborated with Peter J. Richerson (ecology) in Culture and the Evolutionary Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
8. I know of three prominent contributions along these lines. Robert Axelrod (political science) has collaborated with William D. Hamilton (biology), "The Evolution of Cooperation," Science (1981) New Series, (March 27) 211 (4489): 1390-96. Reinhard Selten (economics) has collaborated with Peter Hammerstein (biology) in "Game Theory and Evolutionary Biology," in Handbook of Game Theory, edited by Robert J. Aumann and Sergiu Hart (Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Elsevier, 1994), vol. 2, 929-93. Robert Boyd (anthropology) has collaborated with Peter J. Richerson (ecology) in Culture and the Evolutionary Process (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
9. See a summary discussion on this matter at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001277.htm. The team reported, while acknowledging validity problems due to the sensitivity of the questions, that "most Americans appear to be at relatively low risk of infection with HIV-1 and other STDs from sexual exposures." See also Edward O. Laumann et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 546-47.
10. See a summary discussion on this matter at http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001277.htm. The team reported, while acknowledging validity problems due to the sensitivity of the questions, that "most Americans appear to be at relatively low risk of infection with HIV-1 and other STDs from sexual exposures." See also Edward O. Laumann et al., The Social Organization of Sexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 546-47.
11. Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter, fn. 19, p. 22.
12. For an extensive review of this literature, see Robyn M. Dawes, David Faust, and Paul E. Meehl, "Clinical versus Actuarial Judgment," Science, New Series, 243, no. 4899 (31 March 1989): 1668-74.
13. "Context is central to understanding what social science is and can be" (p. 9). There are nineteen other references to this term in the index. Chapter 4 is called "Context Counts."
14. Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter, 139.
15. Ibid., 153.
16. In fairness to Flyvbjerg, there is more explicit attention to mechanisms in his full study, Rationality and Power: Democracy in Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
17. Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter, 145, 72.
18. James Fearon and David Laitin, "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review 97, no. 1 (2003).
19. Stanley Tambiah, "Continuity, Integration and Expanding Horizons" (interview with Mariza Peirano), Série Antropologia, no. 230, Departamento de Antropologia, Universidade de Brasilia, 1997, 8-10.
20. Ibid., 14.
21. Ibid., 26.
22. Stanley Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), ix.
23. Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter, 145.
24. Stanley Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).
25. Tambiah, "Continuity," 26-27.
26. Ibid., 9.
27. Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? 57 and 47.
28. Flyvbjerg, Making Social Science Matter, 145.
29. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide, 20-27; Stanley Tambiah, Leveling Crowds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 100.
30. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide, 20-27; Stanley Tambiah, Leveling Crowds (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 100.
31. These points are developed in David D. Laitin, "Language Conflict and Violence," Archives Européennes de Sociologie 41, no. 1 (1997): 97-137. The subsequent discussion draws on that article, without use of quotation marks.
32. The results would be more compelling if the effect sizes were properly analyzed so that something could be said about substantive significance of the negative relationship between language oppression and violence. The point here, however, is not to infer a negative relationship supported by the data but to wonder why there was no strong positive relationship, as standard theories of grievance had led us to expect.
33. James Fearon and I address the issue of why settlement schemes more likely yield guerrilla action in "Sons of the Soil," unpublished manuscript.
34. Many in the narrative tradition claim that narratives ought to be formalized. It may well be that game trees and narrative both are formal models but perform complementary tasks in scientific explanation. If this were the case, the terms referring to the tripartite agenda would require adjustment.
35. Robert Bates, "The International Coffee Organization: An International Institution," in Analytic Narratives, edited by Robert Bates et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). The references for the chain-store paradox are Reinhard Selten, "The Chain-Store Paradox," Theory and Decision 9 (1978): 127-59; and David Kreps and Robert Wilson, "Reputation and Imperfect Information," Journal of Economic Theory 27 (1982): 253-79.
36. Robert Bates, "The International Coffee Organization: An International Institution," in Analytic Narratives, edited by Robert Bates et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). The references for the chain-store paradox are Reinhard Selten, "The Chain-Store Paradox," Theory and Decision 9 (1978): 127-59; and David Kreps and Robert Wilson, "Reputation and Imperfect Information," Journal of Economic Theory 27 (1982): 253-79.
37. Robert Bates, "The International Coffee Organization: An International Institution," in Analytic Narratives, edited by Robert Bates et al. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). The references for the chain-store paradox are Reinhard Selten, "The Chain-Store Paradox," Theory and Decision 9 (1978): 127-59; and David Kreps and Robert Wilson, "Reputation and Imperfect Information," Journal of Economic Theory 27 (1982): 253-79.
38. Jon Elster, "A plea for mechanisms," in Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, edited by Peter Hedstrøm and Richard Swedberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 45-73. Techniques to assess causal mechanisms without use of narrative include experiments and recently developed random-matching models in statistics. See Judea Pearl, Causality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), for explications of these techniques. I remain skeptical that either the experimental or statistical innovations will supplant narrative in helping to uncover the causal mechanisms linking values on independent variables to values on dependent variables.
39. Jon Elster, "A plea for mechanisms," in Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory, edited by Peter Hedstrøm and Richard Swedberg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 45-73. Techniques to assess causal mechanisms without use of narrative include experiments and recently developed random-matching models in statistics. See Judea Pearl, Causality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), for explications of these techniques. I remain skeptical that either the experimental or statistical innovations will supplant narrative in helping to uncover the causal mechanisms linking values on independent variables to values on dependent variables.
40. Adam Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World 1950-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Random-matching techniques (see Pearl, Causality) allow us to avoid the unrealistic assumption that other independent variables have comparable values in parliamentary and presidential regimes.
41. Adam Przeworski et al., Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World 1950-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Random-matching techniques (see Pearl, Causality) allow us to avoid the unrealistic assumption that other independent variables have comparable values in parliamentary and presidential regimes.
42. José Antonio Cheibub, Adam Przeworski, and Sebastian Saiegh, "Government Coalitions and Legislative Effectiveness under Presidentialism and Parliamentarism" (unpublished paper, 2002).
43. Randall Stone, Lending Credibility (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
44. I believe this is at least part of what Elster is suggesting with his view that mechanisms will almost never reveal statistically significant relationships.
45. Stone, Lending Credibility, 99.
46. See John J. Mearsheimer, "Methodological Parochialism vs. Methodological Pluralism" (paper presented at Panel 7-1, "Perestroika: Undisciplined, Unpunished," APSA meetings, San Francisco, 31 August 2001).
47. Barbara Geddes, "How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics," Political Analysis 2 (1990): 131-50.
48. Nathaniel Beck, Jonathan N. Katz, and Richard Tucker, "Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable," American Journal of Political Science 42, no. 4 (1998): 1260-88.
49. Harry Eckstein, "Case Study and Theory in Political Science," in Handbook of Political Science, vol. 1, edited by Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975).
50. Gary King, Robert Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).
51. Case number 064, in the year 1681, from a data set of 617 documents from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spain, housed at the Rare Book Division of the Princeton University Library.
52. This argument applies to my promotion of the tripartite method. In response to a critic of their article cited earlier, Dawes, Faust, and Meehl point out that although the results are not conclusive, clinical predictions appear to be better if researchers rely on statistical models only and ignore clinical judgments by experts. See Benjamin Kleinmuntz et al., Science, New Series, 247, no. 4939 (1990): 146-47. Should it be demonstrated that narrative judgments add no explanatory or predictive value in political science (which I doubt would occur), it would be in defiance of the scientific frame to continue insisting on the tripartite method.