The Political Science Interpretivist

Who’d a Thunk it?                                                                A Revolution is being proposed on our California Ballot. Under the unassuming, even boring, label “Measure G,” over 100 years of LA County government structure may be overthrown. A “yes” vote will add a new Chief Executive, to be elected by the People of LA County. This official will have a lot of power to make the operations more effective and efficient. For example, the “County Executive” will have a line item veto over the budget. It’ll have hiring and firing power over some top jobs with the County. (But the Sheriff, District Attorney, and Tax Assessor will remain elected County-wide.) A “yes” vote will also add 4 New Members to the current 5 person Board of Supervisors. BTW, they are all women now. The Board was first created in 1852, t...

For social science, as for law, the concept of “causation” can  take on different forms. These forms of causation are “outside   the box” of the old Newtonian concept of causation. That is, a   one-on-one collision. For example, the “8 ball” in a pool game moved to the corner pocket because the cue ball struck it at the intended angle. The cue ball did that because Minnesota Fats hit the cue ball just right with his pool stick. This is a mechanistic model of causation. In that model, the list of causes prior to Minnesota Fats could go back endlessly; or at least to the Big Bang of 13.8 billion years ago, which, mechanistically, is thought to be the First Cause of everything. However, for the most part, social science, like law, envisions human behavior as conduct for which the actors are responsible. This need not be a “moral” responsibility, for which moral blame is attached. Instead, “causal responsibility” is simply a matter-of-fact, or practical, concept...

The folks at Good Authority aren’t too good at posting contrary views in the Comments section. Guess they feel it would undermine their “authority”! Andrew Rudalevige’s essay at Good Authority has some serious flaws; that is if US v Trump is to be clearly understood by political scientists, so they can explain it to their classes.   First, the very title is a blunder. He writes, “The Supreme Court’s immunity decision sidesteps history.” In fact, the Opinion follows, and draws “good authority” from, the 1803 case of Marbury v Madison. One of the things Chief Justice John Marshal wrote in Marbury is that there are two kinds of official government acts: discretionary and ministerial. He said the courts cannot question discretionary acts made by an official, because these are a matter of professional judgment. The Robert’s Opinion follows this principle of immunity, but re-states it in the more modern language of “official,” with a “core” and periphery, and “unofficial.” (More on this ...

                                           The media and fund raising emailers are having a ball screaming “the sky is falling! The Trump Supreme Court has given Trump ‘absolute immunity’ for whatever he wants to do as President. He’ll kill us all!” But that’s far from true. The United States v Trump The case is known as US v Trump . In its opinion, the Supreme Court didn’t give Trump anything. In fact, the Court remanded the case to the District Court, and told the lawyers for both sides to start all over again. This time, they have to consider three important points. Before explaining these, lets see how the case got to the High Court. As you probably know, Trump was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for several criminal charges alleging a conspiracy to change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. (SCt's Opinion, page 2. All references to the Opinion.) In the...

  Bill Maher thought he was being funny when he vilified student protestors in a recent show . But he was actually doing the whole of humanity a great disservice. I gave a much more accurate and empathic account of the main motivation of these protesters in a prior post on this blog entitled The Psychology of the Student Protests . As an Interpretive political scientist, I observe that the cause of, or reason for, those protests is the strong sense of  compassion  in the students for their fellow human beings in Gaza who are suffering deeply from the merciless slaughter of their family members, friends, and neighbors. There are many issues involved in making this observation, which I addressed in my other post on the subject. I noted that the students have erected those “encampments” as an expression of their shared feeling of urgency that the killing and suffering in Gaza be stopped now. With over a million viewers, Maher could have helped to reduce the widesprea...