# Can politics be studied scientifically? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [April 15, 2014, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209 "2014-04-15T22:08:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/21 "2014-04-18T03:42:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I was a “government” major at Georgetown, but we didn’t study anything even called polysci at all, nor anything using any form of social-science methodology (unless you count Robert Dalh’s [_Polyarchy_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyarchy)), we studied history and constitutional law and comparative foreign governments and great-books political theorists from Aristotle onward. Did you have some sort of statistics requirement? ## I went over to Notre Dame’s website (arrived at via websearch of “Political Science”). As far as I can tell, “Political Science” and “Government” are synonyms insofar as university departmental titles are concerned. Notre Dame’s faculty in their Department of Political Science are divided into 5 headings: they are American Politics, Constitutional Studies, Comparative Politics, Political Theory and International Relations. I can imagine the methods of science being used or not being used in any of them. That said, historical and legal inquiry are legitimate endeavors and can be scholarly. ## The OP: incidentally, the authors of the study use the term “Oligarchy” exactly once in the text. And that’s inside their literature review: it’s _another_ researcher who use that term. > [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > My takeaway from the study is that political scientists did a hard, by-the-numbers study of how often Congressional and Presidential decisions went against the popular will (i.e., did not elect legislation that was supported by most Americans in polls) as opposed to decisions that were favored by business and economic elites (rich guys of various stripes). The astounding thing was just how wide the gap was, and how far back it happened: there were virtually no public policy decisions favored by the majority of Americans, but plenty that favored the business elites. And the study was conducted from 1981-2002 … well before the time when PACS were a big factor. The fix was in, even way back then. > > We are truly, truly screwed. And yet some on this board feel it’s important to vote for Kang rather than Kodos. Pray tell: describe a place and age (say 40+ years) where the elite did not run the show and living standards grew substantially. In rhetorical (not scientific) terms the US has always been an oligarchy. And it’s usually succeeded in delivering a higher standard of living for the grandkids. Oligarchy is the way of the world. This isn’t ancient Rome, the USSR or any number of toxic oligarchies of the past. And while blustering about corporations will give you _some_ electoral traction, it will turn off the vast number of potential swing voters who depend upon Big Corp for their livelihood. The only thing the Greens ever did for the US is deliver their leader, GWBush, to the Presidency. Nobel Laurette Al Gore wasn’t pure enough for them. Attacking the Koch Bros is another matter: apparently that polls well. Science! ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2014, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/22 "2014-04-18T23:53:53Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > We are truly, truly screwed. You are assuming that Straight Dopers are more likely to agree with the political positions of the masses (defined in the study as Americans with near-median incomes) than of the economic elite (Americans whose incomes are near the 90th percentile). But is that true? I can find no indication in the OP study of what the typical differences are between the two groups. But other studies say that the rich are socially liberal and economically conservative. That could be similar to here. P.S. However, my ignorance of Kang and Kodos may have caused me to misinterpret your post. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/23 "2014-04-19T19:25:00Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > A Daily Kos headline caught my eye: [Too Important for Clever Titles – Scientific Study Says We Are an Oligarchy](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/04/14/1292085/-DINO-New-Scientific-Study-Says-Yes-But-It-s-Not-What-You-Think) By the way, has any study like this been done on cross-country comparisons? Can this model measure one country as more democratic or elite-dominated than another? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/24 "2014-04-19T20:09:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > By the way, has any study like this been done on cross-country comparisons? Can this model measure one country as more democratic or elite-dominated than another? Likewise, within one country over time? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/25 "2014-04-19T22:05:19Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > By the way, has any study like this been done on cross-country comparisons? Can this model measure one country as more democratic or elite-dominated than another? I can’t answer your question, but my sense is that c. 1970-2000 the US was perceived to be more populist relative to Europe. Public opinion with regards to the death penalty at the time of European abolition wasn’t especially liberal for example: that was an elite driven phenomenon. Similarly with other aspects of European penal policy. Europeans have also been known to turn their noses up at US actors and sports stars who become politicians. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/26 "2014-04-19T22:22:51Z")
Incidentally, an older anti-pluralist interpretation of US democracy was offered by Elmer Eric Schattschneider’s _The Semi-Sovereign People_ (1960). [Elmer Eric Schattschneider - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Eric_Schattschneider) Wiki: He says the “notion that the pressure system is automatically representative of the whole community is a myth” and, instead, the “system is skewed, loaded and unbalanced in favor of a fraction of a minority.”[3] And “the flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent.”[4] Schattschneider also thinks that US democracy is a pretty decent method of resolving conflict and it remains broadly responsive to the problems of the populace. However, to say that it represents the _opinions_ of the populace is a distortion in his view. My take is that while piss-poor public policy may gratify the ego of a few billionaires, it doesn’t necessarily serve their interests all that well, if you interpret interests in a remotely Maslowvian sense. Luckily the Gates, Musks and even Bezoses of the world seem to grasp this: it’s the silver-spooned Koch Brothers that don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/27 "2014-04-19T23:19:01Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I believe Ernest Rutherford would call those fields “stamp collecting” (as opposed to physics). Ernest Rutherford won his Novel Prize for Chemistry. The laugh was on him. I do happen to have a Political Science degree, and from a university that was starting to convert its Poly Sci department into a mathematical hotbed. Thankfully, it hadn’t gotten fully there before I graduated so I got to do mostly reading. Which is what I wanted, having been a Math major previously. Statistics was useful, though, and I took more in grad school. I minored in History and guess what - that department was swinging heavily into [cliometrics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliometrics) at the same time. Political science can never be a true science. People cannot be measured the way particles can. But as others have properly noted, looking for what behaviors can be measured is a hugely important corrective to the blathering that much commentary is larded with. The downside is that some practitioners limit themselves solely to measurable traits and so get bogged down in minutia that is not broadly meaningful. It’s a work in progress. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/28 "2014-04-19T23:44:08Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question: is it ever possible for political points (e.g. “the United States is an oligarchy”) to be scientifically proven the way the rhetoric suggests it can be? If so, under what circumstances? Why couldn’t it be? If you can define “oligarchy,” then surely one can determine if a society meets that criteria. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/29 "2014-04-21T02:47:38Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Why couldn’t it be? If you can define “oligarchy,” then surely one can determine if a society meets that criteria. You can define oligarchy in any way you wish. The problem is that you can’t define oligarchy in a scientifically objective way that everybody agrees with. In today’s world, oligarchy is a simple pejorative rather than an economic or political fact. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/30 "2014-04-21T03:57:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can define oligarchy in any way you wish. The problem is that you can’t define oligarchy in a scientifically objective way that everybody agrees with. In today’s world, oligarchy is a simple pejorative rather than an economic or political fact. But you don’t need to use a definition that everyone agrees with. Just define your terms and proceed. My take is that the US is not run by a small group of people while China is rule by the Politburo Standing Committee. China has too much turnover in the top position to call it a dictatorship. It’s an oligarchy. The US system of rule is Economic Elite Domination (or pick your model and substantiate). You can call it an oligarchy, but you’re going to need a lot of explanation given the _traditional_ usage of the term. The opinions of less than 100 people are what shape Russian policy. That’s a second sort of oligarchy, one that is more plausible than the US interpretation but that also requires some explanation. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/31 "2014-04-21T09:37:46Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can define oligarchy in any way you wish. The problem is that you can’t define oligarchy in a scientifically objective way that everybody agrees with. In today’s world, oligarchy is a simple pejorative rather than an economic or political fact. But surely they had some criteria they were looking at, right? And this criteria could be measured, right? If you want to argue that that criteria does not define an oligarchy, that’s one thing. But even that doesn’t make the study invalid, just deciding an effective vaccine is one that protects 90% of people rather than 95% doesn’t change a study that finds the vaccine protects 93%. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/32 "2014-04-21T13:55:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can define oligarchy in any way you wish. The problem is that you can’t define oligarchy in a scientifically objective way that everybody agrees with. In today’s world, oligarchy is a simple pejorative rather than an economic or political fact. For these purposes you don’t need to define any concept in a way everybody agrees with, only in a way all **political scientists** can agree with. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/33 "2014-04-21T16:30:24Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > For these purposes you don’t need to define any concept in a way everybody agrees with, only in a way all **political scientists** can agree with. Have you ever met a group of political scientists? 🙂 Nobody really wants a study that says that economic elites have a disproportionate amount of money. Everybody knows that. When you start throwing around words like oligarchy you’re talking about power. Power in that sense is not even supposed to be definable. You might as well substitute charisma or charm. You know it when you see it. Obviously there can be and are many studies of economic elites. The one in the OP is one. Well, sorta. Its headline phrase is that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy,” which is not in fact the same thing. The blog post linked to in the OP makes that point when he talks about how the public’s view on gun policy is ignored, but that’s not from economic elites but from the NRA, and he uses a single extreme statistic to do so. If you try to stick to true economic elites, many things about them can be quantified: whether they made or inherited their money, where they went to school, what businesses they are in, what their political contributions are, even where they vacation and who’s in their lunch network. I’m sure there are many interesting things that can be said as a result. What people want, however, is for someone to say what They are doing to Us and what life would be like if they didn’t. My claim is that this is impossible in a scientifically objective way. I can’t prove this is so, in a scientific sense, but I can point to the fact that nobody has done so. And the OP’s study certainly doesn’t. It gives indicators that from 1981 to 2002 “mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.” As his readers have commented, “well no shit, water is wet.” I understand that all taken-for-granted assumptions must be properly studied and shown to be correct so this might be important research. I would dearly love to know what the figures from 1789 to 1980 show, however. My bottom line is that political scientists cannot answer the real questions that people want to know any more than physics can provide answers to what good behavior is. If what people want is to know if and when politics can be good behavior - and I believe it it - then it’s inherently unquantifiable. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/34 "2014-04-21T16:39:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > You can define oligarchy in any way you wish. The problem is that you can’t define oligarchy in a scientifically objective way that everybody agrees with. In today’s world, oligarchy is a simple pejorative rather than an economic or political fact. You are saying oligarchies don’t exist? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/35 "2014-04-21T17:01:03Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Power in that sense is not even supposed to be definable. Would political scientists agree with that? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/36 "2014-04-21T17:34:30Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Would political scientists agree with that? Ask twelve of them. Be prepared for thirteen answers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/37 "2014-04-22T01:14:13Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Ask twelve of them. Be prepared for thirteen answers. Actually, I think they would get together to work out a precise definition of “power in that sense” they all can agree on, and do it, and go from there. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/38 "2014-04-22T04:45:07Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually, I think they would get together to work out a precise definition of “power in that sense” they all can agree on, and do it, and go from there. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > For these purposes you don’t need to define any concept in a way everybody agrees with, only in a way all **political scientists** can agree with. I’m a little puzzled by your stance. Words don’t have intrinsic meanings: it’s perfectly valid to define oligarchy in various senses, then argue whether one version or another matches one country or another. A group of political scientists writing on the subject are more likely to use a wider set of definitions than the general public. And if they are reasonable, they will be capable of teaching their students that the US is an oligarchy by _this_ definition but not by _that_ one. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > My bottom line is that political scientists cannot answer the real questions that people want to know any more than physics can provide answers to what good behavior is. Applied statisticians in the social sciences rarely provide answers to big questions. What they can hope to do though is answer a small question that sheds light on a bigger one. If you want to address a big question in practice, you need to do some sort of literature review or alternative mechanism for weighing evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/39 "2014-04-22T15:30:41Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Applied statisticians in the social sciences rarely provide answers to big questions. What they can hope to do though is answer a small question that sheds light on a bigger one. Yeah, that’s what I said. The answer to the thread title is Yes: politics can be studied scientifically because it is. But the answers that those studies generate aren’t the ones that anybody outside the profession are looking for. In that sense, the answer must be no. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2014, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209/40 "2014-04-22T15:55:10Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But the answers that those studies generate aren’t the ones that anybody outside the profession are looking for. Don’t see how that follows. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-politics-be-studied-scientifically/686209.md?page=3)