Professor Brendon Swedlow (POLS) 603 [email protected] NIU Spring 2018 Office: 107 Zulauf Hall Wednesdays 3:30-6:10 p.m. Hours: M 1:00-1:50 and 3:25-4:45 DU 464 W 1:00-1:50

History and Scope of Political Science

Seminar Overview

This introductory graduate seminar, as part of our methods sequence, is intended to give you a sense of the epistemological origins, intellectual history and scope of political science as an academic discipline. Accordingly, we will examine the philosophy of social science and the emergence, development, and practice of political science as a distinct focus within the social sciences. The seminar is divided into four parts, beginning with a brief overview of the intellectual history of political science. The second part consists of an historical and philosophical overview of the core identity and episteme of social science in general, and political science in particular. The third part covers some of the dominant paradigms and scholarly research approaches within our discipline, which rely on different assumptions about human behavior, modes of observation and data-gathering, tools of analysis, methods of inference, and ways of conferring meaning and creating knowledge. The fourth part probes some diverse questions that naturally arise from the preceding parts. This seminar should give you a sense of some of the vital debates that have constituted and continue to influence political science.

Seminar, Participation, and Other Requirements

The required readings are listed for each week in the seminar schedule below. There is one required book that we will read in full:

Bent Flyvberg . 2001. Making Social Science Matter . Cambridge University Press.

The following books are highly recommended (but assigned excerpts will be posted on Blackboard):

Kristen Renwick Monroe ( ed). 2005. Perestroika: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science Press

Gary King, , . 1994. Designing Social Inquiry . Princeton Univ. Press

Henry Brady and David Collier. 2004. Rethinking Social Inquiry . Rowman & Littlefield.

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In addition, a number of articles and book chapters are assigned. You should retrieve all articles from JSTOR, other library databases, or online. The book chapters and articles not available from these sources will be made available on Blackboard.

As you know, in graduate seminars learning is advanced by critically reflecting upon our readings and sharing your thoughts with seminar colleagues. In this seminar, we will do this in two ways. First, you will be expected to read assigned materials and to write short papers (2-3 pages) discussing the readings (for 25% of seminar grade). Second, you will be asked to take turns leading discussion of the week’s readings, and when you’re not leading discussion to participate in it (for 20% of seminar grade). Almost half (45%) of your seminar grade will be determined by actively participating in the seminar in these ways.

I will email you some questions every week to guide writing of discussion papers and reflection on readings. Discussion papers are due Tuesday by noon before the Wednesday meeting at which the week’s readings will be discussed. This is to allow time for your colleagues to read and me to grade your papers. Please paste them into the discussion board dialogue box I will create for that purpose. Because discussion papers are designed to support discussion of the week’s readings, late discussion papers will receive F grades.

An analytical paper and an exam, their due dates, and their contributions to your seminar grade:

1. Analytical Paper. The proponents of cultural theory approaches in Week 14 seek to show how these can advance or improve upon rational choice, new institutional, historical institutional, psychological, and interpretive approaches to politics covered in previous weeks. Choose one cultural theory approach and its engagement with one of the other approaches. Explain the cultural theory approach you have chosen and how it is similar to or different from the others in Week 14. Explain how the cultural theory approach that you have chosen seeks to advance or improve upon ONE of the other approaches covered. Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your chosen cultural theory approach with respect to its claims to advance or improve on the other approach that you have chosen to analyze. Make your assessment on theoretical, conceptual, methodological, and empirical grounds, using what you have learned in this seminar. All the cultural approaches have relevant empirical applications (see survey in Swedlow 2011; see also the bibliography of applications found in Wildavsky 2006). Please talk with me about your planned paper; I may be able to point you to relevant work. Your 12- 15 page analysis is due April 27 th posted to the Blackboard discussion board forum for this paper. (30% of your seminar grade)

2. Take-Home Exam. Complete a take-home exam on either Monday or Tuesday (your choice) of finals week. The exam is designed to help PhD students practice for their comprehensive exam but all students are required to take it. Email me your exam answer (12-15 pages) 24 hours after I send the exam question(s) to you. (25% of your seminar grade)

More than half (55%) of your seminar grade will be determined by this analytical paper and your take home exam.

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Please do not… • ask for extensions on turning in your analytical paper or exam. Analytical papers will be graded down one third of a grade per day that they are late. Late discussion papers and late exams will receive F grades. • ask for an incomplete in the seminar unless you have a very, very compelling reason to do so.

Definitely do not… • engage in “academic misconduct,” defined by the NIU Student Judicial Code as the “receipt or transmission of unauthorized aid on assignments or examinations, plagiarism, unauthorized use of examination materials, or other forms of dishonesty in academic matters.”

Department of Political Science Announcements

Statement Concerning Students with Disabilities

Northern Illinois University is committed to providing an accessible educational environment in collaboration with the Disability Resource Center. Any student requiring an academic accommodation due to a disability should let his or her faculty member know as soon as possible. Students who need academic accommodations based on the impact of a disability will be encouraged to contact the Disability Resource Center if they have not done so already. The Disability Resource Center is located in the 4th floor of the Health Services Building, and can be reached at 815-753-1303 [v], 815-753-3000 [TTY] or email at [email protected]

Reading Assignments and Discussion Topics

PART I.

WEEK 1 Introduction to the Seminar and Political Science as a Discipline "The Nature of Contemporary Political Science: A Roundtable Discussion." 1990. PS: Political Science and Politics. 23(1): 34-43 John Z. Dryzek and Stephen T. Leonard. 1988. “History and Discipline in Political Science.” APSR 82(4): 1245-1260. APSA Task Force Report on Graduate Education. 2004. APSA Task Force Report on Political Science in the 21 st Century. 2011. Available at: http://www.apsanet.org/portals/54/Files/Task%20Force%20Reports/TF_21st%20Century_AllPg s_webres90.pdf Daniel Stockemer, Ekaterina R. Rashkova, Jonathon W. , and Alasdair Blair. 2016. “Introduction.” Profession Symposium: The Discipline of Political Science in Europe: How Different Is It from Political Science in North America? PS: Political Science & Politics , 49(4), 813-815.

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Bo Rothstein. 2016. “Perspectives about the Difference in the Relevance of American and European Political Science.” PS: Political Science & Politics, 49(4), 834-838. PART II. The Foundations and Evolution of the Discipline

WEEK 2 Epistemology, Explanation and Meaning in the Social Sciences Thomas Kuhn. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd Ed.). Chapters 1-2 and Postscript. Paul Diesing. 1991. How Does Social Science Work? Reflections on Practice . Introduction and Chapters 11-12. Karl Popper. 1963. Conjectures and Refutations . Selected Excerpts. Larry Laudan. 1984. “A Problem-Solving Approach to Scientific Progress” in Science and Values : the Aims of Science and Their Role in Scientific Debate . Bernie Grofman. 2001 Puzzle-Solving in Political Science . Introduction. Brendon Swedlow, “Three Cultural Boundaries of Science, Institutions, and Policy: A Cultural Theory of Coproduction, Boundary-work, and Change,” Review of Policy Research , 34(6), 2017: 827-853. Special Issue on Boundary Organizations.

WEEK 3 The Development and Evolution of Political Science as a Social Science William Riker. 1982. "The Two Party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science," APSR 76(4): 753-766. APSR Centennial Volume, Special Issue on “The Evolution of Political Science” 2006. APSR 100(4): 463-698. Selected Articles. James Farr. 1988. “Political Science and the Enlightenment of Enthusiasm,” APSR 82(1): 51-69.

WEEK 4 The Role of Causation and Inference in Political Science Gary King, Robert Keohane, Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry , Selected Chapters Henry Brady and David Collier. 2004. Rethinking Social Inquiry . Chapters 1-3, 5 Terrence Ball. 1995. "Deadly Hermeneutics; Or SINN and the Social Scientist." In Idioms of Inquiry: Critique and Renewal in Political Science : 95-112. Milja Kurki. 2008. Causation in International Relations: Reclaiming Causal Analysis. Cambridge University Press. Selected Chapters. John Gerring. 2012. Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework. Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. Selected Chapters.

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WEEK 5 The “Perestroika Movement” in Political Science Various authors. 2005. In Kristen Renwick Monroe (ed.). Perestroika: The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science . Introduction, all of Part I (Chapters 1-2, 4-6,9). Mark Bevir and R.A.W. Rhodes. 2010. The State as Cultural Practice. Oxford University Press. Selected Chapters. Perri 6 and Christine Bellamy. 2016. “The inadequacy of interpretivism: explaining Britain’s failure to ‘number the people.’” In Turnbull N, ed, Interpreting governance, high politics and public policy: essays commemorating Interpreting British governance . London: Routledge, 151- 171. WEEK 6 The Quantitative versus Qualitative Debate: What is this Debate and is it Worthwhile? Henry Brady and David Collier. 2004. Rethinking Social Inquiry , Selected Chapters Review Symposium. 1995. "The Qualitative-Quantitative Disputation," APSR 89(2): 454-81. Mark Bevir and Asaf Kedar. 2008. “Concept Formation in Political Science: An Anti-Naturalist Critique of Qualitative Methodology. Perspectives on Politics , 6(3): 503-517. McDermott, Rose. 2002. “Experimental Methodology in Political Science.” Political Analysis 10:325-342 Kristen Renwick Monroe (ed.). 2005. Perestroika! (Selected Chapters). Evan S. Lieberman. 2005. “Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research,” APSR 99: 435–52.

PART III. Approaches to the Study of Politics

WEEK 7 Behavioralism

Robert Dahl. 1961. “The Behavioralist Approach” APSR 60(4): 763-72.

David Easton 1969. "The New Revolution in Political Science." APSR 63(4): 1051–1061.

V.O. Key. 1958. “The State of the Discipline” APSR 52: 961-71

David M. Ricci. 1984. The Tragedy of Political Science: Politics, Scholarship, and Democracy. Chapter 5.

David Papineau. 1978. For Science in the Social Sciences , Chapter 7

James Farr. 1995. "Remembering the Revolution: Behavioralism in American Political Science," in Political Science in History: Research Programs and Political Traditions , 198-224

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WEEK 8 The Rise of Rational Choice Theory and “New Institutionalism” James March and Johan Olsen. 1984. “The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life.” APSR : 78(3): 734-749. Anthony Downs. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy, selections. Mancur Olson 1965 . Logic of Collective Action , selections. William Riker. 1990. “Political Science and Rational Choice.” In Perspectives on Positive Political Economy , James Alt and Kenneth Shepsle, Eds. Cambridge University Press. Jack Knight. 1992. “Social Norms and Economic Institutions. APSR 86: 1063-64. WEEK 9 NO CLASS MARCH 11-18 TH , SPRING BREAK WEEK 10 Limitations and Critiques of Rational Choice Theory Donald Green and Ian Shapiro. 1994. Pathologies of Rational Choice . Selected Chapters. Mark Lichbach. 2006. Is Rational Choice Theory All of Social Science? Selected Chapters. Mark Gray and A. Wuffle, 2005 “Vindicating Anthony Downs.” PS : 737-740. WEEK 11 Political Psychology Herbert Simon. 1985. “Human Nature in Politics: The Dialogue of Psychology with Political Science” APSR 79(2): 293-304. John Sullivan, Wendy Rahn, and Thomas Rudolph. 2002. “The Contours of Political Psychology: Situating Research on Political Information Processing.” In James Kuklinsi (ed.) Thinking About Political Psychology. Ch. 1. Robert Lane. 2011. “Rescuing Political Science from Itself.” In David O. Sears, Leonie Huddy, and Roberts Jervis (eds). Oxford Handbook of Political Psychology . Chapter 21. Rose McDermott, 2004. “The Feeling of Rationality: The Meaning of Neuroscience Advances for Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics, 2: 691-706. Boudreau, Cheryl and Lupia, Arthur. 2011. “Political Knowledge.” In James N. Druckman, Don ald P. Green, James H. Kuklinski, and Arthur Lupia (eds.) Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science . WEEK 12 Historical Institutionalism . 1995. "Why I am an Historical-Institutionalist," Polity 28(Fall): 103-6 & Theda Skocpol. 2002. “Historical Institutionalism in Contemporary Political Science”, in & Helen V. Milner (eds). Political Science: State of the Discipline. New York: W.W. Norton: 693-721.

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Karen Oren and Stephen Skoronkek. 2004. The Search for American Political Development . Selected Chapters. Paul Pierson . 2004. Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis , Selected Chapters. Scott E. Page. 2006. "Path Dependence." Quarterly Journal of Political Science : Vol. 1: No. 1, pp 87-115. Michael Howlett and Jeremy Rayner. 2006. “Understanding the Historical Turn in the Policy Sciences: A Critique of Stochastic, Narrative, Path Dependency and Process-Sequencing Models of Policy-Making over Time.” Policy Sciences 39(1): 1–18. James Mahoney and , eds. 2008. Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge University Press. Selected Chapters. WEEK 13 Interpretivism and Phronesis Bent Flyvberg . 2001. Making Social Science Matter . Cambridge University Press. (all) Sanford Schram. 2005. “Perestroika, Phronesis, and Postparadigmatic Political Science” in Monroe (ed.) Perestroika! , Chapter 8 (pp. 103-114). . 1986. “Observation, Context and Sequence.” APSR 8(1):3-15. WEEK 14 Grid-Group Cultural Theory, Cultural Cognition Theory, and Neo- Durkheimian Theory Lisa Weeden. 2002. “Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science.” APSR 94: 713-728. Brendon Swedlow. 2011. “Editor’s Introduction: Cultural Theory’s Contributions to Political Science.” Symposium: A Cultural Theory of Politics. PS: Political Science & Politics, 44, 4: 703-710. Sun-Ki Chai. 1997. “Rational Choice and Culture: Clashing Perspectives or Complementary Modes of Analysis?” In Culture Matters: Essays in Honor of , ed. Richard J. Ellis and Michael Thompson, 45–56. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Gunnar Grendstad and Per Selle. 1995. “Cultural Theory and the New Institutionalism.” Journal of Theoretical Politics 7 (1): 5–27.

Charles Lockhart. 1999. “Cultural Contributions to Explaining Institutional Form, Political Change, and Rational Decisions.” Comparative Political Studies 32 (October): 862–93.

Marco Verweij. 1995. “Cultural Theory and the Study of International Relations.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 24 (1): 87–111.

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Marco Verweij, Timothy J. Senior, Juan F. Domínguez, and Robert Turner. 2015. “Emotion, rationality, and decision-making: how to link affective and social neuroscience with social theory.” Frontiers in Neuroscience 9:332. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2015.00332

Dan M. Kahan. Cultural cognition as a conception of the cultural theory of . Pp. 725–759 in Roeser S, Hillerbrand R, Sandin P, Petersen M (eds). Handbook of Risk Theory: Epistemology, Decision Theory, Ethics, and Social Implications of Risk . Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer, 2012.

Perri 6. 2011. Explaining Political Judgment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapters 2-3.

Michael D. Jones. 2014. “Communicating Climate Change: Are Stories Better than ‘Just the Facts’?” The Policy Studies Journal , 42(4): 644-673.

IV. Goals and Applications of Political Science WEEK 15 Can Political Theory Be Relevant in the Modern Discipline (and does it want to be)? Analytical paper (12-15 pages) described above is due Friday, April 27, posted to discussion board forum for this paper. Ruth W. Grant. 2002. Political Theory, Political Science, and Politics”. Political Theory , Vol. 30, No. 4, What Is Political Theory? Special Issue: Thirtieth Anniversary, pp. 577-595 Sheldon Wolin. 1969. “Political Theory as a Vocation,” APSR 63: 1062-1082. Alasdair MacIntyre. 1983. “The Indispensability of Political Theory,” in D. Miller and L. Siedentops, eds. The Nature of Political Theory , 17-33. John G. Gunnell. 1988. “American Political Science, Liberalism, and the Invention of Political Theory.” APSR , Vol. 82(1): 71-87. Aaron Wildavsky. 1989. “Review: If Institutions Have Consequences, Why Don't We Hear About Them From Moral Philosophers?” APSR , 83(4): 1343-1351. Raymond Guess. 2008. Philosophy and Real Politics. Princeton University Press. Selected Chapters. WEEK 16 Does Political Science have a Normative Commitment to Democracy? Should it? E. E. Schattschneider et al. 1950. “Towards a More Responsible Two-Party System”, APSR Vol 44(3), Part 2 (Supplement) Ira Katznelson. 2003. Desolation and Enlightenment: Political Knowledge After Total War, Totalitarianism, and the Holocaust . Press, Chapter 2. Sonja Amadae. 2003. Rationalizing Capitalist Democracy . Selected Chapters

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Ido Oren. Our enemies and US: America's rivalries and the making of political science , Selected Chapters. William H. Riker. 1982. Liberalism Against Populism: A Confrontation Between the Theory of Democracy and the Theory of Social Choice , Chapters 1 and 10. Frank Hendriks. 2010. Vital Democracy: A Theory of Democracy in Action. Oxford University Press. Selected Chapters. WEEK 17 Finals Week – 24 Hour Take-Home Examination May 7 or 8.

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