Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=apsa.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the
scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that
promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
American Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
PS: Political Science and Politics.
http://www.jstor.org
SYMPOSIUM
PSOnlinewww.apsanet.org 785
Be that as it may (I shall exemplify later), let me first leads to an ontological discussion, whereas the correct ques-
identify the main characteristics of the state of the art, that is tion is: to what degree is a polity and/ or a democracy demo-
to say of how political science has established itself in the cratic? I take it, however, that both replies misconstrue the
American Academia and, under its mighty influence, in most argument.
of the world. Our discipline has sought its identity, I submit, The belittlement of definitions is wrong on three counts.
as being: First, since definitions declare the intended meaning of words,
i) anti-institutionaland, by the same token, behavioral; they ensure that we do not misunderstand each other. Second,
words are also, in our research, our data containers. Therefore,
ii) as becoming as quantitativeand as statistical as possible; if our data containers are loosely defined our facts will be
misgathered. Third, to define is first of all to assign limits, to
iii) and in privileging the theory-researchpath of inquiry at the delimit. Hence the definition establishes what is to be included
expense of the theory-practicenexus. and conversely what is excluded by our categories. If democ-
My quick reaction to the above is (i) that politics is an in- racy is defined as a system in which leaders are elected, most
terplay between behavior and institutions (structures), and countries currently qualify as democracies; but if it is defined
therefore that behavioralism has eliminated with the dirty wa- as a system of "free elections," then the countries included in
ter also the baby, thus overshooting the mark; (ii) that quanti- our list would be halved. How can one say, then, that defini-
tativism is in fact driving us into a march of either false tions are unimportant?
precision or of precise irrelevancy; and (iii) that by failing to The degree argument is even more arguable. Its familiar and
confront the theory-practice relationship we have created an endlessly repeated premise is that all differences are differ-
useless science. ences in degree. But no. There is nothing in the nature of
Since the first two indictments are familiar ones, they do things that establishes that differences are of degree, just as
not need to be explicated. I thus propose to dwell on the third there is nothing that establishes that they are intrinsically in
one. The question is: knowledge for what? Just for the sake of kind. Differences are continuous if so treated (logically). Like-
knowledge? In part yes; but in part no. wise differences are discontinuous under the classificatory per
Most sciences divide themselves into two branches: the pure genus et differentiam treatment. Whether differences are quan-
science and the applied science. The pure science is not con- titative or qualitative, of degree or of kind, is a matter of logi-
cerned with practical matters. It unfolds along the theory- cal treatment and thus a matter of deciding which handling is
research dimension seeking data and engaging in evidence- appropriate for what purpose.
finding. The applied science unfolds, instead, along the theory- If defined, democracy must obtain, by definition, an oppo-
practice dimension and therefore as a knowledge for applica- site, say, non-democracy. Question: how does democracy re-
tion, and indeed as a knowledge verified (or falsified) by its late, logically, to its opposite? Well, in two ways. We may
success (or failure) in application. And the fact that our disci- hold-applying Aristotle's principle of the excluded middle-
pline has missed, or even dismissed, its applied branch entails that democracy and non-democracy are contradictories and
that political science is a theory without practice, a knowledge thus mutually exclusive terms. If so, any given polity is either
crippled by a know-how void. democratic or not. But we may also conceive democracy and
I was asking: knowledge for what? The answer is that po- non-democracy as the polar ends of a continuum that admits,
litical science cannot answer this question. Practice-wise it is along the way, intermediate possibilities and thus many differ-
a largely useless science that does not supply knowledge for ent degrees of democracy. In this case the principle of the ex-
use. Furthermore, in neglecting the application it also de- cluded middle does not apply; and that is all there is to it. We
prives itself of its best truth-test. For the notion of truth is, are thus equally entitled to ask what is, or what is not, a
in science, a pragmatic one. Something is true when it democracy, and to ask to what degree a democracy is more or
"works." less democratic (with respect to which characteristics). Both
In order to justify our practical and predictive failings we are perfectly legitimate questions that are best asked, it seems
have invented the theory of unintended consequences. But this to me, in that order. The first question establishes the cut-off
is very much an alibi for covering up the fact that we have points. The second one deals with within-democracy varia-
not developed an applied knowledge hinged on "if . . . then" tions. But this is hardly the argument that you will find in
questions and on means-ends analysis. While unintended con- most American textbooks. There you are likely to learn that
sequences are always in the cards, their inevitability has been dichotomous thinking is obsolete, that measurement replaces
largely overstated. In the field of reform policies and of insti- definitions, and so on and so forth. A sequel of slogans that
tutions building most of our predictive failures were easily attest in my opinion, to logical illiteracy.
predictable and most unforeseen consequences could have been I must conclude. Where is political science going? In the
easily foreseen (as ex post analysis almost invariably reveals). argument that I have offered here, American-type political sci-
But let me leave this matter at that, because I now want to ence (to be sure the "normal science," for intelligent scholars
pursue the point to which I had earlier promised that I would are always saved by their intelligence) is going nowhere. It is
return, namely, that we have a methodology without logic, that an ever growing giant with feet of clay. Visit, to believe, the
has lost sight even of logic. annual meetings of the American Political Science Association;
Take, to illustrate, the manner in which the topic of our it is an experience of unfading dullness. Or read, to believe,
meeting-democracy-is generally discussed in the discipline. the illegible and/or massively irrelevant American Political
What is democracy? If this is a request for a definition, then Science Review. The alternative, or at least, the alternative for
the reply is likely to be that we should not worry about defin- which I side, is to resist the quantification of the discipline.
ing and that definitions are to be kept loose. Otherwise the Briefly put, think before counting; and, also, use logic in
reply is likely to be that this is an ill-formulated question that thinking.
Josep M. Colomer is research professor in political science David D. Laitin is the James T Watkins IV and Elise V Watkins
at the Higher Councilof ScientificResearch(CSIC)in Barcelona Professorof PoliticalScience at StanfordUniversity.
and the Centerfor Researchand Teachingin Economics(CIDE)
in Mexico. He has been a FulbrightScholar at the Universityof Giovanni Sartori helped found the first political science
Chicago and professor at New YorkUniversityand Georg town departmentin Italy.He is author of ComparativeConstitutionalEngi-
University.He is the author of more than 50 academic articles neering:An Inquiryinto Structures,Incentivesand Outcomes.
and a dozen books, including Political Institutions(Oxford
UniversityPress, 2001), and editor of Handbook of Electoral
System Choice (Palgrave-Macmillan,2004).
PSOnlinewww.apsanet.org 787