The Foundation of Politics, Part II
Responses to my Blog-mates, the Professor, and IR Academia as a Whole
Whenever someone tells me that they are studying Political Science, in my mind, I always imagine them saying "I am studying Political Science*". This is of course, simply my opinion on the matter based on my frustration with academia's take on international relations. Specifically, I'm am getting at a fact that many of my fellow bloggers have discussed, politics is not a hard science like physics or chemistry. Numbers, in the metaphorical sense, do not, and cannot, solely explain historical decisions or predict future ones with great accuracy in the realm of world politics. Yes, I will admit that my opinion is influenced by a 'rationalist' perspective and so I don't think that it is impossible to 'logic' and 'reason' one's way toward a future prediction, but any answer comes attached with an asterisk. In political science and international relations any political theory is just that, a theory. Due to the intensely complex workings of human society and highly relativistic take on 'facts' that motivate decision-making and ideological subscription, a theory likely will never truly become a law. Why is this the case? In science laws do not change, in the field of human behavior, certain degrees of change are entirely possible. On the whole, in my opinion, the study of politics, and politics itself, remains just as much an art, in the academic sense, as it is a science.
Where am I going with all of this? Well I'm taking a stab at political theorists that attempt to build theories without the inherent recognition of the flexibility of the human experience. Realism and Liberalism are model culprits here. Turning to this week's readings, both articles (Laffey and Weldes, as well as Goldstein and Keohane), attempt to remedy this situation by discussing the importance of ideas; or as I like to think of them: perspectives. The latter, Goldstein and Keohane, take a disconnected approach to explaining the influences of 'ideas' and 'interests' on political decision-making. My disagreements with this particular point-of-view was the subject of Part I of this series of posts. As Professor Shirk commented on the earlier post, Laffey and Weldes begin to look at ideas as 'symbolic technologies.' In their work, they describe a definition of 'ideas as capital' and in doing so, the authors reach a much closer understanding of the importance and characteristics of individual and societal perspective (in the form of ideas) on decision-making (1997).
One area where I do disagree with Laffey and Weldes is their relative dismissal of rationalist though. I say relative for a specific reason, that is, Laffey and Weldes take a look at rationalism as it is currently defined, their rejection of it is relative to this particular understanding. My opinion on the matter, as previously stated in our group blog, is that rationalism is entirely applicable, it just needs to be redefined. Too many academics, and worse yet, practitioners, view the world through rational eyes, and harmfully, view rational thought solely through their own point-of-view and decision-making process. To counter this, I propose a new evolution of rationalist theory called relative-rationalism. This new concept embraces the universal importance of perspective ('ideas'). For instance, if one were to apply Laffey and Weldes' explanation of 'ideas' to the motivations and actions of a certain state, I would argue that by-and-large, from the perspective of the state in question, their actions remain rational despite not necessarily appearing so to other states. Thus, relative-rationalism. This new definition of rationalism would allow it to be reconciled with the importance of 'ideas'. Some may argue that this runs contrary to rationalism itself, I disagree, this is rationalism in its true, human-centric form.
In the end, this line of thinking leads me to the point-of-view that Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity is the only fundamental, permanent law that can be applied to political science.
What do you all think?
Dan,
ReplyDelete"Relative-rationalism" has a great ring to it! As you say, there is as much art as science to the thing. And, as you mention, a number of us share your frustration. There are things we can quantify and things we cannot. Yet, we continually struggle to quantify it all - square peg, round hole. There is something to be said for studying from the place where these converge and to allow room for ambiguity. That would solve my issue with metaphorical reference. To use metaphor as a device to quantify seems inane. But, to use it to represent nuance in the socio-political realm makes all the sense in the world - the art.
I'll climb on this frustration train as well. A lot of my peers and friends have a preconceived notion that political science and international relations are easy topics of study. They say that because there is no hard math or science involved it can't possibly be as complicated as other fields. Ha! If they only knew. I should have them read our blogs. I agree that the absence of these hard maths and sciences is precisely what makes the study more challenging than say chemistry. Everything is gray, as you so frequently like to point out Dan! How can we possibly get anywhere if there is no black and white? How do we decide on the best way forward? Hopefully by the end of this course we will have a better understanding :)
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