American political science is in the throes of yet another identity crisis over research methods. Over a decade since the Perestroika challenge to the dominance of quantitative methods in the discipline, a similar debate has emerged about the importance of transparency and replicability. The American Political Science Association, our major professional organization, has passed a series of new ethics guidelines that are ostensibly meant to promote transparency in research. Known among political scientists as DA-RT (data access and research transparency), these new guidelines require researchers to make their data available via public repositories and to present all aspects of the research process for scrutiny. This is the latest attempt by the discipline to distance itself from the dangers of academic laziness associated with events like the Sokal hoax. As per usual, the increased scrutiny unduly burdens those who employ qualitative methods more harshly than others. Thankfully there has been some vocal opposition to these developments, including an online community for mixed method researchers to air their concerns. These discussions have been fruitful. I am left pondering the larger political significance of this will to transparency, and I wonder how we might think Trump and transparency together.
It is an understatement to say that political science has been left with much to ponder in the aftermath of Trump’s election. Fundamental questions about the state of liberal democracy and the values of democratic citizenship have to be reevaluated. It seems a shame, then, amidst this existential quandary, that the discipline that should be most capable of addressing these questions has decided to double-down on the over reliance on scientism that is at least partially responsible for this mess. Consider the following passage from POLITICO’s recent damning account of the Clinton campaign’s missteps in Michigan:
Michigan operatives relay stories like one about an older woman in Flint who showed up at a Clinton campaign office, asking for a lawn sign and offering to canvass, being told these were not “scientifically” significant ways of increasing the vote, and leaving, never to return.
Hillary Clinton built the most sophisticated campaigning apparatus in American political history, packed to the gills with statisticians whose regression analyses predicted voter behavior block-by-block across America. And she lost. Political analysts lacked the skills to make sense of the cultural factors at work in the election. Meanwhile, a billionaire reality TV star understood exactly how to manipulate the political system and bend the electorate to his will. The methods of cultural analysis and comprehending meaning were sidelined in favor of hard numbers to disastrous effect. In other words, the dynamics behind the Trump win are partially attributed to the hegemony of positivist thinking, dynamics also at work at the heart of the discipline of political science.
Transparency is fine as a goal for academic research. I worry instead about the underlying positivist suspicion of cultural analysis that subtends the move towards DA-RT. Some scholars are sounding similar alarms. It seems like the world has never so badly needed political science that can address itself to the real challenges playing out daily in the Trump transition. With its internecince squabbling, our discipline built on the pillars of American political ideals of democracy and free thought risks fiddling while Rome burns.
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