Anya Palkowski

To condense the divergent branches of political science into a series of basic tenets is a dangerous exercise that gravely risks oversimplification and the loss of vital details. Political science comprises a multiplicity of theories, subtheories, and variations, many of which seem only tangentially related and ultimately pursue different questions and seek to explain different outcomes. However, certain connections that run through the subfields may be distilled into basic methodologies that give us valuable insight into precisely what gives the field of political science its versatility and usefulness in producing both prescriptive and explanatory theories.

As a rudimentary starting point, political science is defined by the American Political Science Association as the examination of “the process, systems, and political dynamics of all countries and regions of the world.”[i] This definition, while mechanically accurate, provides only a shallow understanding of the focus and value of political science – to distinguish the field solely by the subjects it covers is a crime of oversimplification. What of theorists like Isaiah Berlin and Alasdair MacIntyre, who make no specific mention of governments or legal processes, but rather explore themes of human nature, morality, and universal liberties? To create a more inclusive definition, we can frame political science academia as the study of how actors of all sizes create and are constrained by structures. This idea is eloquently advanced by international relations constructivist Alexander Wendt, who treats IR scholarship as a basic exploration of the “relationship between agency, process, and social structure,” but can be applied to the entire field of political science (Wendt 1992, 422). Whether these structures are exogenous, implicit or purposefully arranged depends on both the subfield and the author. Explaining the field using any more precise terms – for example, the solving of collective action problems, specific definitions of human nature, or explaining how peoples create governments – risks excluding important works because they frame questions differently or use unconventional variables.

Despite the identifiable actors and structures that define the study political science, any focal differences from other social sciences cannot satisfactorily express the special appeal of political science. Delving deeper, one finds that the theoretical distinction between political science and other social sciences is subtler and infinitely more meaningful than any mechanical definition. As with many scientific pursuits, curiosity about outcomes and motivations acts as political science’s driving factor, but unlike positive economics, anthropology, or sociological studies, political science assumes an innate normative judgment, either benevolent or otherwise, that lends any given political scientific analysis to the creation, preservation, and furthering of human societies.

Political theorist Isaiah Berlin noted in 1958 that the many schools of political science “spring from, and thrive on, discord” (Berlin 1958, 1). As a field, political science has grown to represent a diverse range of studies in morality, comparison, prediction and specific political machineries. Deriving consistencies throughout this splintered field of scholarship requires that we must turn to the subfields in order to derive a common raison d’être. There are, of course, vast differences among the specific areas of study within the field; each seeks to explain a different dimension, a different set of questions. However, each draws upon two fundamental principles in trying to explain or predict outcomes: first, relationships between actors and structures, and second, some manner of normative outlook on the future of human participation in communities. Numerous as the subfields of political science are, running the gamut from moral philosophy to concentrated area studies, a small sample of influential writers of political theory, comparative politics, American politics and international relations can each offer compelling insight into the commonalities that define the field of political science.

Political theory investigates fundamental issues of innate human liberties and how best to make political structures accommodate them – all the while outmaneuvering selfish or contradictory tendencies implicit in human nature. More significantly, they are known for their descriptions of the ideal state of the world. Although moral philosophy and normative judgments are more difficult to isolate in other subfields, the desire for an ideal state clearly emerges in the works of Isaiah Berlin, John Rawls, and Nancy Fraser.

Isaiah Berlin uses positive and negative liberties to illustrate the importance of self-determination and freedom from oppression. Citing the importance of “moral notions in the sphere of political relations,” Berlin expresses firm belief in the absolute existence of inalienable rights, the preservation of which should be a primary goal of all political aspirations (Berlin 1958, 2). Many political theorists strike, as Berlin does, at the very crux of relationships between actors and structure, and attempt to describe the tension that exists between innate liberties and the structures that are both put into place and abided by the members of a community. The writings of John Rawls are similar in focus, in that his Theory of Justice assumes an unconditional view of basic rights while claiming that government structures should complement those rights by preserving and respecting personal liberties. Rawls, one of political theory’s most celebrated scholars, is best known for his view that “a well-ordered society is a society effectively regulated by a public conception of justice” (Rawls 2001, 31). It is difficult to locate a more unequivocal normative judgment in all of political science academia. Rawls and Berlin together illustrate that in the eyes of political theorists who write on the natural liberties of individual actors, political science is not merely framed as a study, but also an aspiration.

A more practical outlook on the moral interplay of actors and societal structures arises from the writings of Nancy Fraser. In an exploration of redistributive justice and cultural sensitivity, Fraser directly suggests operating outside structures in order to remedy “socioeconomic injustice and cultural injustice” that are “rooted in processes and practices that systematically disadvantage some groups of people vis-à-vis others” (Fraser 2003, 72). After identifying the issues presented to actors by existing structures, Fraser advances her own very clear prescription regarding the balance between redistribution and cultural recognition. As is common of treatises on cultural imperialism and the ethics of social equality, her analysis concludes with a proposed solution – specifically, the implementation of “socialism in the economy plus deconstruction in the culture” – thus providing another of political theory’s clearest examples of a clear normative agenda (Fraser 2003, 91).

By paralleling many different modes of governance, the study of comparative politics seeks to explain why certain methods of statecraft become dominant under different environmental stimuli. This versatile and divergent subfield identifies multiple types of actors and constraining structures in an effort to devise reasons for the emergence of specific political systems and often adopts the stance that intrastate actors have the power to influence and change governmental structures. Whereas comparative historical analysts Barrington Moore and Theda Skocpol attempt to methodically and objectively identify the conditions under which actors influence the emergence of certain political structures, scholars like Samuel Huntington adopt a more explanatory premise, and attempt to analyze the roots of turmoil as defined by the dichotomy between social groups and political institutions.

Moore treats classes as dominant actors and attempts to analyze the conditions under which “lords and peasants” influence the formation of modern industrial societies. In claiming that the gentry class became the “main representatives of a decisive historical trend modifying the structure of English rural society,” and that radical actors were largely responsible for overhauling various corrupt or inequitable governmental structures, Moore ascribes to actors the decisive power to change their structures rather than being passively constrained by them (Moore 1966, 15-30). Moore’s approach, on the whole, resembles social history as much as political science, as he attempts to “point to a contingent connection among changes in the structure of society” rather than use historical material to overtly plan for the future (Moore 1966, 29). However, by making the case that social groups can meaningfully affect political systems if existing structures are organized favorably for structural transformation, he legitimizes transformative revolutions, such as the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and the Northern industrial overthrow of the Southern elite during the American Civil War, as viable methods of structural change that can foster modernization and lead to desirable evolutions of government. Theda Skocpol supplements this favorable view of social revolution by asserting that the revolutions led by social classes have “given birth to nations whose power and autonomy markedly surpassed their own prerevolutionary pasts and outstripped other countries in similar circumstances” (Skocpol 1979, 3). According to Moore and Skocpol, structure is a constraint only until social actors are poised to transform them – and when political systems are transformed, it is often for the better.

Merging with Moore and Skocpol in declaring a ground-up formula for social revolutions, Samuel Huntington maintains that the relationship between institutions and social actors is unbalanced, resulting in “rapid social change and the rapid mobilization of new groups… coupled with the slow development of political institutions” (Huntington 1968, 4). In Huntington’s view, arriving at a solid social order is invaluable to developing countries; in a society where norms are shared, and where a large and inclusive polity exists, “conflicts are limited and are resolved through the structure of the social force” (Huntington 1968, 9).  Structures need not be political or tangibly defined to exert control over individual actors with differing preferences, but their existence is necessary – both to order actors and to provide a context for conflict resolution.

The subfield of American politics illustrates the degree to which the mechanics and principles of political science condense to the level of regional analysis while retaining the field’s unique qualities and aspirations. Much of American political literature focuses on the liberal rhetoric of democracy, equality, and participatory politics, and observes individual actors as they both form and act under the influence of the large federalist structure of American government. The rules of a democratic system either succeed or fail at constraining individual actors – primarily individual voters and politicians. American politics scholars seek to arrive at a better understanding, and ultimately a better implementation, of constitutional democracy; whether their predictions cast a favorable or pessimistic light over the relationship between actors and structures, each scholar lays out units of analysis, diagnoses the ailments of American politics, and implicitly prescribes an antidote.

American political values are based in large part on the Federalist Papers, political treatises authored by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison that outline the tenets of effective constitutional democracy. The Federalists seek to use the norm-based concept of self-identification with a whole to create consensus among individual actors and eliminate faction – by creating a new social structure, they hope to decrease occurrences of conflict among individual actors. Alternately, Madison posits that secondary actors – politicians and elected officials – should stand in for the masses, and that in their dedication to justice they will be less likely to “sacrifice [the national interest] to temporary or partial considerations” (Madison 1787). Nevertheless, the politician is not immune to the empowering effects of the structure given by representative democracy; to curb the harmful influence of asymmetrically powerful actors, Madison advocated checks and balances as a system of restraint that would curb and regulate the actions of the actors that operated therein (Madison 1788).

While the Federalist Papers explicitly prescribe the proper treatment of conflict among social actors by a constitutional government, American politics is also replete with comparative historical scholars. Louis Hartz’s exploration of political institutions in America maintains that social unrest, and subsequently revolution, was made possible by preconditions in the structure of American society. He goes on to argue that a structure for liberal democracy was already present, and that the foundations for social revolution were laid far before individual actors rose to overturn a “class-ridden corporate society” that did not truly exist at the time of the Revolution (Hartz 1952, 322).

The view that structure drives the behavior of actors appears, albeit in a very different context, in John Aldrich’s Why Parties?, an exploration of candidate and voter behavior that considers political officials and candidates for public office actors bound by an evolving campaign structure. For example, as information flow is altered by technology, candidates devise new ways of interacting with campaign tools in order to achieve reelection, not all of which reflect the ideals of fairness and equality put forth by the archetype of representative democracy (Aldrich 1995, 272). As is often the case in American politics, the normative aspirations of both studies lie in their implicit romanticism of the “ideal” liberal democracy. Methodological studies of democratic principles are also known to plainly offer normative judgments: in conducting a study of democratic structures in relation to the natural behavior of individuals, James Prothro and Charles Grigg assert that the ideals of participatory democracy have not yet been achieved (Prothro & Grigg 1960). Their study of the vast gulf between stated and actual beliefs embodies a benevolent desire to reconcile the contradictions of human nature with effective governance, and to elevate the political machinery of vote aggregation to a level that is truly compatible with the normative good of equal political participation.

International relations scholarship presents perhaps the most transparent example of a subfield that attempts to describe how actors both shape and are constrained by structures. The interactions between actors – in this case, states on the international stage – and the power structures that constrain them involve restraint and freedom, the existence or nonexistence of rules, and a multiplicity of both predictions and warnings about the future of international cooperation.

Although the theory of realism has been present in international relations scholarship since the ancient Greek philosopher Thucydides claimed that military might defined state behavior, Hans Morgenthau’s principles are most often considered the basis of modern realism. Morgenthau uses “interest defined in terms of power” to explain behavior as constrained by an anarchical system where anything other than self-help results in state failure – a tenet that has fueled decades of realist thought in international relations. The overarching normative element in Morgenthau’s prescription for foreign policy is not difficult to pin down: one can easily identify in his “Six Principles of Political Realism” the ideal situation to which he believes the state should aspire. Morgenthau’s fourth principle of political realism explains that “moral principles cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation;” he goes on to claim that the alternate morality interest of protecting its own citizens at all costs to external actors should supersede any notion of “universal” morality (Morgenthau 1978, 12). Rather than advocating for the universal morality promoted by Rawls or advocates of liberal international relations, Morgenthau chooses to pursue the relative morality of the state as the proper conduct of foreign policy.

Neorealists and offensive realists are more cautious with prescribing antidotes; instead they strive to objectively analyze the behavior of actors in the naturally given structure of the international system. The structural realism of Kenneth Waltz, for example, is so named because it plainly takes the stance that structure drives actors. Structural change, as exemplified by the end of the bipolar era after the end of the Cold War, “affects the behavior of states and the outcomes their interactions produce,” but does not change the “essential continuity” that characterizes all interstate interactions (Waltz 2000, 39). Mearsheimer’s offensive realism, another modern take on classical realism, also adopts the claim that “state behavior is largely a function of the given structure of the external world” (Mearsheimer 1995, 15). According to this structure-to-actor ordering principle, state attempts to create order and cooperation out of anarchy will inevitably meet with failure.

Both Waltz and Mearsheimer serve as examples of the realist tradition of understanding and devising ways to survive within an anarchical international system without seeking to change it, but normative goals often glance out from behind the raincloud of rational pessimism: a “powerful sense of responsibility to the broader international community” is “desirable in principle,” even to a realist, even though structure may be too powerful a constraint to realize that goal (Mearsheimer 1995, 39-40). Even though realist structures for international society do not bode well for naïve aspirations of peace among self-interested actors, realist authors recognize the ideal international world as “genuine peace, or a world where states do not compete for power” (Mearsheimer 1995, 9). Without its vested interest in solving the riddle of human selfishness to preserve or improve social order, realist scholarship might be better described as an especially pessimistic branch of political sociology.

Among liberals, liberal institutionism and complex interdependence are most well-developed in their definition of actors and states. Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin engage the theory of liberal institutionism in order to envision a future where international institutions are able to alter the structure that drives the behavior of self-interested states (Keohane & Martin 1995). Unlike realists, who are devoted to the idea that the structure of self-help and anarchy is all-encompassing, liberals explore how actors are able to create new channels of interaction that subvert traditional assumptions about the way the world is structured. Liberals make it especially easy to identify the normative bent of their writings; faced with the long-standing pessimistic tradition of realism, they actively strive to subvert our understanding of human nature and mold it into a viable plan for the future. Although Keohane and Nye claim only to “analyze the politics of interdependence, not to celebrate it,” they have nevertheless devised a vision for the future that is unshackled by the oppressively grim tenets of realism (Keohane & Nye 1989, 5).

Critical theory, as a blanket critique of society, culture, and the way knowledge is formed, can be applied to many fields but most often appears as a response to realism in international relations. Constructivism is the most difficult to reconcile with political science as a study of actors and structures, as constructivists conceptualize structures quite differently than realists and liberals. Maintaining that the determinants of state behavior are “social rather than strictly material… and that these structures shape actors’ identities and interests, rather than just their behavior,” Alexander Wendt seeks to prove that structures are not exogenously given, but instead socially constructed by the “shared knowledge, material resources, and practices” of a community (Wendt 1995, 72). In rejecting pessimistic realist assumptions about the rigid necessity of self-help, Wendt claims that there are no behavioral structures except the ones we invent – realists are wrong in ascribing ultimate truths to the world; in order to evolve, we must discard our preconceptions of what is naïve and what is realistic.

Even a cursory glance across the variety of methods employed by political scientists enumerates a number of additional variables that separate the subfields, including units of measurement, basic assumptions about character and motivation, and the very scale at which the subfield attempts to analyze facts and derive theories. However, just as outstanding are commonalities among the fields that consolidate to form a core methodological focus for the field of political science as a whole.

Although the cleavages in each subfield are difficult to generalize, the branches of political science each entertain their own conceptions of actors and structures; whether the units one examines are individuals constrained by the legal and social structures of constitutional democracy or states operating under assumptions of self-help and anarchy, actors across the landscape of political analysis maintain complex relationships with the structures that surround them. A majority of the actors discussed in political theory are individuals, and must strive to create structures that best foster their natural liberties. Comparative politics is distinguished by its ability to describe the origins of varying modes of governance in terms of their own respective actors and structures. American politics views groups as aggregates of individuals – actors not only separately but also as a collective – who pursue their preferences within the confines of the American ideal of participative democracy. Finally, international relations takes states as primary actors and explores their relationship with the social or power-related structures of the international system.

Regardless of what additional variables the authors of each subfield add to the relationships between actors and structures, political science is possessed of an innate normative quality that imbues it with the ability to work towards the advancement of political structures. Whether it is explicitly defined, obliquely hinted at, or implied, the concerted desire to advance towards an ideal state of existence is the universal connective tissue of political science. Without prescriptive capabilities, political science is reduced to a static exercise concerned with observation rather than improvement; its normativity is what makes it a unique and ultimately meaningful contribution to social science.

Endnotes

*only cites works not referenced in-line