My CPS experience this week - in lecture and in textual conversation with Weber, Macridis, and the others - has provoked the cycling of one thought through my mind to the point of its exhaustion. It takes the form of a question: to pin down human nature and correctly predict human choices is ultimately impossible, so why invent a discipline to perform such a task? Try as I have to circumvent this doubt about the efficacy of political science, I continue to revert to Aristotle's maxim of certitude: that a science can measure its object with only as much certainty as is inherent in the object itself.
But this week, Lave, March, and Professor King helped me rationalize the enterprise of social science my elucidating the nature of its goal. It became clear that what the social scientist strives to do is not to impose order on a naturally variable phenomenon but to detect what order, if any, exists in it. The aim is not to artificially create order but to observe it. All of this is done with the end of explaining and predicting, to the incomplete extent possible, actions taken in the realms of politics and society. Macridis underlines that the utility of comparative political study exists in its power to be explanatory rather than simply descriptive; by employing data to highlight similarities and differences attached to certain behaviors, social scientists can move beyond static legalities and systems to undertake the study of dynamic forces of trends and change.
While Weber, revered as a forefather of social science, does not attempt comparative political study, he does propose a model that I find useful both in thinking about contemporary politics and in illustrating the value of social science. Weber proposes the model of the professional politician - the political figure who earns income by holding an administrative office. Weber's observations about the nature of such politicians lead him to reasonable conclusions that lend insight to the behavior of modern politicians. When practicing politics doubles as a career, the professional politician must consider personal concerns in conjunction with the promotion of society's wellbeing. The purity of the political agenda is thus complicated. Weber's conclusion that "all party struggles are struggles for the patronage of office, as well as struggles for objective goals" has modern explanatory power. It provides a potential rationale for the role of personal advancement in every modern professional politician's priorities, campaign initiatives, and susceptibility to corruption.
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