How the empirical approach helps the scientific study of politics

Introduction

The empirical approach tries to make the study of politics resemble a science: it derives its propositions from observation and tests them. The question asks how this helps the scientific study of politics. The answer defines the approach, shows what it adds, and notes where it falls short.

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.

Contribution to the scientific study of politics

Putting the above together, the approach helps in five ways. (1) Objectivity. By separating fact from preference, it aims at findings that observers who disagree about values can still accept. (2) Testability. Statements must be capable of verification (and, after Popper, of falsification), which disciplines speculation and exposes error. (3) Measurement. Quantitative techniques and statistical tests allow comparison, such as comparing electoral systems or levels of participation across countries. (4) Generalisation and prediction. The search for regularities, as the Greek students of constitutions made when they described cycles of change, supports explanation and some forecasting. (5) A guide to action. Reliable knowledge can inform policy, which the drive for value-free theory was intended to make possible.

The contemporary view retains the best of this: the empirical and comparative method remains a check on broad generalisations across cultures and continents, even while political theory is seen as a normative project.

Conclusion

The empirical approach contributes evidence, method and discipline to the study of politics, and the scientific aim is valuable. It does not exhaust political theory, for politics deals with values and meanings that observation alone cannot settle. The best course is to combine empirical findings with normative thinking under rigorous criticism.