Field Experiments in Political Science

In Western Europe and especially West Germany, introducing a new approach in political science, biopolitics, is not an easy task. German political science has a very strong and effective philosophical tradition (Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Weber), which separates it from the life sciences. Traditionally, political science is a theoretical branch of study, and politics is regarded principally as a rational process. Based on well-known historical experiences, German social scientists raise ideological objections to biology, and, with some exceptions (Flohr, 1979, 1983; Buhl, 1981, 1982), they neglect the findings of the life sciences. Political science mainly operates in a vacuum, adhering to the discipline's traditional monistic conceptions of what politics ought to be. Thus, in Germany the first problem is how to change monistic approaches and create a new kind of scientific conception of the world, one that is open and dynamic (Radnitzky, 1971) and able to integrate findings from the life sciences. Only then can biopolitical perspectives become anchored in the discipline. Thus, introducing biopolitics in Germany depends on a mental change, from traditional monistic conceptions to an open conception.

This paper is a reflective and experiential piece on practising interpretive policy research — a meaning focus sed approach to studying politics. Much effort in recent years has gone into defining and defending interpretive methods against positivist approaches in political science. Yet surprisingly little is known about how researchers actually ‘interpret’ the political world, and what issues they face in practice. This paper follows the journey of an interpretive project and reflects on a series of methodological issues it posed. The discussion reveals that interpretive methods can be demanding on researchers: they needto immerse themselves in policy practice, engage iteratively, embrace uncertainty, and work with multiple interpretations. To encourage learning and improve the practice of interpretive research in political science, this paper calls on scholars to be more reflexive about what they do by sharing their research experiences.

The restoration and development of political science as a discipline in China since 1980 benefits from its methodological improvements that were made largely by introducing research approaches from western academia. The aim of this paper is to examine the evolution of the introduction based on articles published in Chinese academic journals since 1990. There exists a wide diversity in research approaches in political science, and the authors try to explain why each approach has a different impact on Chinese political studies and how the introduction of such knowledge has changed the way Chinese political researchers understand the methodology and political science as a discipline.

Nomination: A note on the cumulation problem by Dag Anckar, p.73 Reflections: The cumulation problem revisited by Gunnar Sjöblom, p.78

Austerity politics, war in the Middle East and at other borders of the European Union, the rise of nationalisms, the emergence of populist parties and politicians, Islamophobia and the refugee crisis are amongst the recent developments suggesting the need for discussions about the theories and concepts that academic disciplines provide for making sense of societal, cultural and political transformations. In this article, we focus on the capacities of feminist political theories to undertake this task. By assessing different feminist approaches to political analysis that range from focusing on women and men, to analysing gender, to doing intersectionality and to adopting post-structural and new materialist approaches, we explore the contributions and the limitations of each framework. This allows us to consider where feminist theoretical debates on gender and politics currently are, to assess old and new developments and to address lacunae in the debate. Our argument is that dominant approaches in political science influence the emergence and marginalisation of particular feminist frameworks for political analysis, but also that feminist theorising of gender and politics, in striving for recognition within mainstream political science, reproduces its own hegemonies and marginalisations.

Previous articleNext article No AccessArticlesVolunteers for Gore: The Impact of a Precinct-Level Canvass in Three Tennessee CitiesDavid E. Price and Michael LupferDavid E. Price Search for more articles by this author and Michael Lupfer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Politics Volume 35, Number 2May, 1973 Sponsored by the Southern Political Science Association Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2129076 Views: 12Total views on this site Citations: 16Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Andra Gillespie Canvasser Affect and Voter Response: Results From National Focus Groups, American Politics Research 38, no.44 (May 2010): 718–758.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X09353503J. Kevin CorderJ. Kevin Corder is professor of political science, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008.Christina WolbrechtChristina Wolbrecht is associate professor of political science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556. Political Context and the Turnout of New Women Voters after Suffrage, The Journal of Politics 68, no.11 (Jul 2015): 34–49.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2508.2006.00367.xScott D. McClurg Indirect Mobilization, American Politics Research 32, no.44 (Jul 2016): 406–443.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X03260581Peter W. Wielhouwer In Search of Lincoln's Perfect List, American Politics Research 31, no.66 (Jul 2016): 632–669.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X03255171David Niven The Mobilization Calendar, American Politics Research 30, no.33 (Jul 2016): 307–322.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X02030003005Anna L. Harvey PARTISANSHIP AS A SOCIAL CONVENTION, Rationality and Society 13, no.44 (Aug 2016): 462–504.https://doi.org/10.1177/104346301013004003Alan S. Gerber, Donald P. Green The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment, American Political Science Review 94, no.33 (Aug 2014): 653–663.https://doi.org/10.2307/2585837 Alan S. Gerber , and Donald P. Green The Effect of a Nonpartisan Get-Out-the-Vote Drive: An Experimental Study of Leafletting, The Journal of Politics 62, no.33 (Oct 2015): 846–857.https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00035 Peter W. Wielhouwer Releasing the Fetters: Parties and the Mobilization of the African-American Electorate, The Journal of Politics 62, no.11 (Oct 2015): 206–222.https://doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00010PETER W. WIELHOUWER The Mobilization of Campaign Activists By the Party Canvass, American Politics Quarterly 27, no.22 (Apr 1999): 177–200.https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X99027002002Shaun Bowler, David M. Farrell The Study of Election Campaigning, (Jan 1992): 1–23.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22411-1_1Blair T. Weir The American tradition of the experimental treatment of elections: A review essay, Electoral Studies 4, no.22 (Aug 1985): 125–133.https://doi.org/10.1016/0261-3794(85)90003-4Susan E. Howell Campaign activities and state election outcomes, Political Behavior 4, no.44 (Jan 1982): 401–417.https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00986971Michael W. Mansfield, Ruth Ann Weaver Political Communication Theory and Research: An Overview, Annals of the International Communication Association 5, no.11 (Nov 2017): 605–625.https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.1981.11923865J.A. Laponce The Use of in Vivo and Laboratory Experiments in the Study of Elections, International Political Science Review 2, no.44 (Oct 1981): 385–406.https://doi.org/10.1177/019251218100200402Lester M. Salamon, Stephen Van Evera Fear, Apathy, and Discrimination: A Test of Three Explanations of Political Participation, American Political Science Review 67, no.44 (Aug 2014): 1288–1306.https://doi.org/10.2307/1956549

Field experiments, which are a powerful research technique, are common in some fields, but they have not been widely used in studying the effect of financial and counseling planning interventions. Financial services can benefit from the expanded use of field experiments to explore potential causal mechanisms for the effects of financial planning and counseling interventions. This article describes the value of field experiments as well as the potential problems with the approach, in this context. Researchers and practitioners in financial planning and counseling should explore opportunities to conduct field experiments, especially in situations where studies can be carefully designed and implemented in a standardized way with a sufficient number of people and where valid measures are available.

No self-respecting economist, political scientist, or sociologist today ignores the importance of institutions. In standard economics, institutional analysis has found a central place: endogenous growth theory, transaction costs economics, as well as the new economics of organization imply an active incorporation of institutions into theory; and since the seminal article by March and Olsen (1984), even hard core behavioural political science has been forced to come to terms with the structuring effect of institutions, while game-theoretic approaches in political science underscore the role of institutions in shaping outcome sets.

Two important methodological debates in political theory concern (i) the place of historical research and interpretation in normative inquiry; and (ii) the importance of comparing different cultural traditions of political thought. The first question animates a long-standing controversy over the relative importance of ‘history of political thought’ versus ‘philosophy’ in political theory, while the second has been central to the recent growth of ‘comparative political theory’. Despite both debates being concerned, in fundamental ways, with history and comparison, they have remained surprisingly disconnected from broader debates in the humanities and social sciences about the use of comparative history and, in particular, of the prominent methodological approach in political science known as ‘comparative historical analysis’. This may reflect the fact that the debates over history of political thought and comparative political theory have fundamentally revolved around thought—history as the history of thought and comparison as the comparison of thought—whereas comparative historical analysis is more centrally focused on the study of political behaviour. In this paper I suggest that this neglect of comparative historical analysis in political theory represents a missed opportunity. Like other forms of social scientific inquiry, comparative historical analysis can yield important empirical knowledge for political theorists. But I wish to more ambitiously suggest that comparative historical analysis can also be adapted for conducting normative political theory itself. I summarise the key features of comparative historical analysis for political theorists, and explain how its use of historical cases can supplement both the use of imaginary thought experiments and the study of contemporary politics. I then delineate three specific ways in which comparative historical analysis might be used to support normative inquiry: deductive testing, inductive construction, and casuistic elaboration. All three, I argue, can help meet recent calls to bring the study of real political behaviour more centrally into political theory research.

The Disorder of Political Inquiry. By Keith Topper. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. 336p. $45.00.The conceit framing Keith Topper's fine and necessary book is that the state of social science methods has grown so disordered it has even come to public attention, first when the journal Social Text unwittingly published Alan Sokal's parody of poststructuralist jargon and the now defunct Lingua Franca exposed the hoax, and then when the so-called Perestroika movement emerged to challenge dominant approaches in political science. Because the first instance attacked the perceived consequences of epistemic relativism in the social sciences generally and the latter the rigor mortis resulting from an allegedly hegemonic notion of scientific rigor in its discipline in particular, Topper's conceit allows him to play the role of Odysseus steering through the straits, lashed to his hermeneutic mast while shunning the Manichean siren songs of scientific monism to the one side and empty pluralism on the other, and heading for more open, ecumenical waters. It also enables him to claim that all this tacking to and fro has a public, political import. Indeed, he asserts that his primary concern in this book is “with a set of contemporary questions about the ways in which particular methodological commitments enable or constrain one's capacity to identify and act upon opaque power relations that sustain forms of domination” (p. 12).

This research addressed theoretical approaches in political science arguing that the American electorate is either poorly informed or dependent on party label cues, by assessing performance on political judgment tasks when party label information is missing. The research materials were created from the results of a national opinion survey held during a national election. The experiments themselves were run on nationally representative samples of adults, identified from another national electoral survey. Participants saw profiles of simulated individuals, including information about demographics and issue positions, but omitting party labels. In Experiment 1, participants successfully judged the likelihood of party membership based on the profiles. In Experiment 2, participants successfully voted based on their party interests. The results were mediated by participants' political knowledge. Conclusions are drawn with respect to theories from political science and issues in cognitive science regarding categorization and reasoning.

Influence in the International Competition Network (Icn): Who Seeks It, How Do They Do This and Why?

The ideals of tolerance and cultural exchange associated with the interfaith past of Muslim Spain (al-Andalus) have become a symbol for Andalusian regionalism and for the integration of Moroccan communities. Nowhere is this more keenly felt than in the context of music. In cities such as Granada, Moroccan and Spanish musicians actively promote the ideals of intercultural dialogue through the performance of repertoires such as flamenco and Arab-Andalusian music that allegedly possess a shared cultural history. In this article, we examine the interrelationship between music and ‘intercultural regionalism’, focusing on how music is used by public institutions to ground social integration in the discourse of regionalism. Against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia and the mobilization of right-wing populist and anti-immigration rhetoric both within Spain and internationally, the authors consider how music can be used to promote social integration, to overcome Islamophobia and to tackle radicalization. We advance two arguments. First, we argue that the musical interculturalism promoted by a variety of institutions needs to be understood within the wider project of Andalusian regionalism. Here, we note that musical integration of Spain’s cultural and historical ‘Other’ (Moroccans) into Andalusian society is promoted as a model for how Europe can overcome the alleged ‘death of multiculturalism’. The preferential way to achieve this objective is through ‘intercultural regionalism’, envisioned as the combination of regional identity-building and intercultural interactions between communities that share a common cultural heritage. Second, we assess some of the criticism of the efficacy of al-Andalus as a model for contemporary intercultural exchange. Combining approaches in political science and ethnomusicology, we focus on one case study, the Fundación Tres Culturas (FTC). Through interviews with figures within the FTC, we examine why this model has become partly insufficient and how it is borne out in the sorts of musical activities programmed by FTC that seek to move beyond the ‘andalusí’ myth. We conclude by recognizing the continuing regional and international importance of this myth but we question its integrating capacity at a time of radical political, economic and environmental upheaval.

As the use of field experiments in criminology increases, discussions have focused on methods for achieving randomization, correcting for flawed randomization, increasing power and addressing treatment implementation problems in the interventions under study. This paper explores what may be a fairly common and basic challenge for field experimentation: the problem of attrition before random assignment in the targeted population—when an experiment may be well conducted, except that it ‘misses the target’ for a variety of possible reasons and produces experimental results that may be of questionable validity. To illustrate this basic, but seldom discussed, phenomenon, this paper draws on the examples of 13 field experiments by the author and colleagues as a body of case studies to assess the nature and magnitude of pre-assignment attrition and its possible implications for experimental findings.

Field experiments may be useful for researchers and managers concerned with aquatic plants. Since experimental design and statistical analysis are closely related, this paper discusses statistical and practical considerations for conducting and evaluating field experiments with aquatic plants. Special emphasis is given to the analysis of variance, assumptions required for its use, and concepts related to it (e.g., statistical power, means comparison procedures, treatment structure, pseudoreplication, etc.). The paper concludes with a brief introduction to papers in the literature which illustrate the use of field experiments for studying aquatic plants.