Political Studies Review

This Introduction sets out the basic content and structure of Keith Dowding’s The Philosophy and Methods of Political Science. It introduces the rationale for the symposium and explains the wide range of responses that were sought. The articles that follow are briefly introduced along with the elements of Dowding’s response.

In this short but critical appreciation of Keith Dowding’s seminal Philosophy and Methods in Political Science I reflect on the distinctive treatment of both realism and explanation in contemporary political science that its author offers, expressing rather more sympathy for the former than the latter. I welcome his critique of the use and misuse of ‘isms’ in much of the existing literature, while pointing to some potential inconsistencies; I accept his broad and inclusive understanding of philosophic realism; and I praise Dowding for putting the question of explanation – and its adequacy – at the heart of the philosophy of political science (where I think it belongs). Yet I reject the idea that prediction is, or indeed, should be central to all social scientific explanation. Similarly, I take issue with the contention that we are typically distracted by questions of causation, suggesting that the presentation of a ‘credibly causal’ narrative is the crux of adjudicating good from bad explanation. I explore the implications of such a position and conclude with comments on Dowding’s call for the reproducibility and transparency of data.

Keith Dowding’s book is a tour de force through some important debates in the philosophy of the social sciences. In this short comment I focus on the role of explanation and how (if at all) causation is or should be related to explanation in political science. By appealing to the difference between predictive and explanatory power, I critically engage with Dowding’s proposal that explanation is the reduction of surprise. This leads me to a brief detour to the philosophy of models before I return to the issue of causation, especially the difference between causation as dependence and causation as production and how this distinction can inform methodological debates in political science.

This short response presses further on considerations about the N of cases and so-called qualitative and quantitative evidence in political research. I ask whether Dowding’s critique of the claims of causal process-tracing is relevant to case studies as they appear in real-life political science. I argue that choosing a case is an integral part of performing a case study and case studies in reality are always situated within research designs that are attentive to a case’s relationship to others. Dowding’s work in my view could be complemented by a further elaboration of its pragmatic implications for how we consider and favour certain approaches to sampling and types of data in our field. In widening the debate, I ask why systematic reviews and meta-analyses are conspicuous by their absence in political science. Finally, I return to a discussion of what this means for disciplinary culture and cumulative advancement of disciplinary knowledge.

This article engages with the methods content in Dowding’s book, examining the underlying assumptions regarding political science methodology and data and arguing that these issues deserve a more central role. In particular, the new possibilities for generation and analysis of large-scale data sources from political activity is driving methodological change, requiring a variety of multi-disciplinary expertise, and presenting new ethical challenges. Expansion of the toolkit of political science methodologies to incorporate the growing field of computational social science, or social data science, draws new scientists into the analysis of politics – such as mathematicians, computer scientists and physicists – who bring their own philosophy and practice of theory building, explanation and approach, which may shape the discipline in the future.

In this article I focus on those aspects of Keith Dowding’s book that are most concerned with interpretive approaches to the study of politics. I argue that, in ways not adequately captured by Dowding’s descriptions, the historical study of political concepts tells us something about their historical political effects and for this reason has a distinct value for how we think about and study politics. Furthermore, I argue, concepts of and about politics, including the concepts of political science, cannot be fully separated from the political contexts of which they are a part. Concepts which function as generalisable explanations at one point in time can shape the thinking and behaviour of political actors and thus be very particular causes. A philosophy or method of political science unaware of or inattentive to this dimension of politics and political science is incomplete.

This article responds to the comments on my book The Philosophy and Methods of Political Science. It clarifies my attitudes to isms, explains why I do not think causal explanation is the only type of scientific explanation and suggests that type-level explanation of background structural conditions is explanatory although not what we ordinarily think of as causal explanations; in doing so, it defends formal models. It clarifies what I mean by prediction and why this is necessary, although not sufficient for explanation, and discusses the relationship of type and token explanation to large- and small-N research. It also discusses bias, case selection, big data, the qualitative–quantitative distinction and replicability. It concludes by arguing that interpretative approaches are spot on when they claim that the nature of language is important for understanding society but only over looped terms and not all scientific discourse.

The study of power is one of the defining features of International Relations. Thus, every generation of IR scholars undertakes a reconsideration of the concept of power in an attempt to place its own definitive stamp on one of the oldest conversations in world affairs. What distinguishes current engagements with the consideration of power is that they are happening in the context of a power transition. It is in this setting that the three books included in this review both reflect and address the different puzzles attendant in the current re-articulations of the notion and practices of power in IR. Jiang Qing addresses the ‘what’ of power through a novel assessment of previously overlooked Confucian insights. Marjo Koivisto engages the ‘when’ of power by drawing attention to the strategic impact of normative state action in world affairs. Alexander Cooley explores the ‘how’ of power through a parallel assessment of the strategic competition for influence between the US, Russia and China in Central Asia.

Jiang, Q. (2013). A Confucian Constitutional Order: How China’s Ancient Past Can Shape Its Political Future. Trans. E. Ryden. Ed. D. A. Bell and R. Fan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Blame avoidance behaviour (BAB) has become an increasingly popular topic in political science. However, the preconditions of BAB, its presence and consequences in various areas and in different political systems largely remain a black box. In order to generate a better understanding of BAB and its importance for the workings of democratic political systems, the scattered literature on BAB needs to be assessed and structured. This article offers a comprehensive review of the literature on blame avoidance. It departs from Weaver’s concept of blame avoidance and subsequently differentiates between work on BAB in comparative welfare state research and work on BAB in public policy and administration. It is argued that between these two strands of literature a bifurcation exists since both perspectives rarely draw on each other to create a more general understanding of BAB. Advantages from existing approaches must be combined to assess the phenomenon of blame avoidance in a more comprehensive way.