Practice question · Select all that apply
Which are true of political science as a discipline?
Hints
- Three describe its actual method and history; one claims a status it does not have.
- Comparison is the substitute for the experiment, not a weaker version of physics.
Show the answer
- A. It professionalised in the late nineteenth century, long after politics itself
- B. It requires concepts explicit enough that another researcher applies them the same way
- C. It relies on comparison because controlled experiments on countries are usually impossible
Why
Comparison is the discipline's central method precisely because you cannot randomly assign countries to electoral systems. What makes the work scientific is explicit concepts, inspectable evidence and falsifiable claims, not the production of physics-like laws, which no serious practitioner claims.
Practise Politics, and the Science of It
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