A critical examination of the empirical approach

Introduction

The empirical approach was the dominant conception of political theory in the twentieth century. To examine it critically means to explain what it is, set out its strengths and ask whether it can stand as the way to study politics. The syllabus lists behavioural analysis as the representative reading.

The empirical approach

Empirical political theory derives its propositions from observation and refuses to count as knowledge any theory that rests on value judgement; normative theory is dismissed as a statement of opinion and preference. The drive for a value-free theory arose in order to make the field scientific and objective and so a more dependable guide for action. This orientation is positivism: political theorists set out to produce scientific knowledge about political phenomena by principles that can be tested and verified, aiming at a natural science of society in which philosophy is a mere adjunct, and the theorist is a disinterested observer purged of commitments. It rests on an empiricist theory of knowledge with experiment and the verification principle as its criteria of truth and falsehood.

The behavioural revolution carried this approach to a commanding position in the 1950s. Its features were: encouragement of quantitative techniques; replacement of the normative framework by empirical research open to statistical tests; rejection of the history of ideas; a preference for micro-studies, which suit empirical treatment; the glorification of specialisation; data drawn from the behaviour of individuals; and an insistence on value-free research. The syllabus names behavioural analysis as the reading for this approach.

Contribution. The approach pushed political enquiry towards evidence, comparison and testable claims, which helps to check broad generalisations across cultures. It makes the study of elections, voting, public opinion and institutions a matter of data.

Criticism. (1) The behavioural mood became anti-theory; theory was caricatured as ideology, abstraction, metaphysics and utopia, and some even advocated farewell to theory. (2) The distinction between thought and reality was blurred. (3) Post-positivist philosophers of science undermined the claim to value-neutrality. Popper's falsification made knowledge conjectural and tentative, and Kuhn, Lakatos and Hesse showed that all cognition depends on interpretation, so observation is never theory-free. (4) Contemporary theory calls value-free enquiry useless and treats political theory as an inherently normative and engaged project, although it still values empirical and comparative work. Arendt added that the search for uniformities in human behaviour only stereotypes the human being.

Conclusion. The best view is that facts and values need each other: normative theory without evidence is utopian and empirical theory without normative questions is blind.

Assessment

The approach is right to demand evidence and clarity, and wrong to claim that only what is observable has meaning. A claim that all values are mere preferences is itself a philosophical claim and cannot be proved by observation. Post-positivism corrected the excess of the earlier phase without discarding evidence. Its place in a balanced political theory is as a check on speculation, to be joined with normative reasoning and historical understanding.

Conclusion

The empirical approach made the study of politics more disciplined, but its attempt to remove values from political theory could not succeed. A critical verdict is that it is indispensable as a method and inadequate as a complete theory.