Is Interpretive Political Science Just Journalism? A Comparison of Wildland, On the Run, and Evicted.

Two of the major leaders in the political science interpretivist movement are Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea. They hold occasional chautauquas in which issues related to interpretivism are discussed. On one occasion, it was said that interpretivism is often accused of being little more than a glorified form of journalism, and not worthy of any claims to being “scientific.”

I will contest that claim in this post. I will use three well received books concerning American politics. These are: Wildland, by Even Osnos, which uses a journalistic approach. This will be compared with two exemplary applications of the methods used in interpretive political science: On the Run, by Alice Goffman and Evicted, by Matt Desmond. [1]

One major difference here, in my view, is that political science writing, if it is to make a claim to being “scientific,” contains a causal theme within its narrative. Journalism is generally narrative without disciplining itself to formulating any causal explanations.

Wildland

Wildland, for example, purports to explain some elements of the current political unhappiness, indeed “fury,” in the United States. The subtitle is, The Making of America's Fury. To the extent to which the term “making” suggests some sort of causal explanation, the book fails. The narrative is only reportage, without causal connections being hypothesized.

Osnos, a staff writer for The New Yorker, selects a few characters from three urban areas in which he has lived. These are Chicago, Ill., Clarksburg, WV., and Greenwich, CT.

An MD in Connecticut drops that profession in favor of working in a Wall Street hedge fund firm. He made a killing after the Glass-Steagall Act was repealed during the Clinton administration, and moves into a grand house in Greenwich. But he gets caught at insider trading, (166) and is sent to prison for several years. When he gets out, he finds he has fewer friends. But he still has millions to live on.

A poor Black kid on the south side of Chicago has a knack for math and does very well in a neighborhood private school. But after his family was evicted, (137) his single mom couldn’t afford the cost of a private high school. In the rowdy public school he only learned about drugs and crime. He, too, ends up doing time. As a felon, finding a job after release is very difficult. But he uses his time to help organize youths in his part of town and ends up a valuable asset to his community.

In Clarksville, a third generation coal miner, who came from a middle class family, lost his job along with 100s of others when the mines closed. Then he had to compete with teenagers for menial work around the town where he grew up. Osnos mentions that West Virginia is among the worst cases of opioid addiction (73) as well as gun related crime.

In other words, Wildland is a collection of vignettes reported without proposing any causal connection with the present political unhappiness in the United States. While Osnos notes the political and material inequality in the US population, he does not hypothesize a causal relation between such inequality and the political unhappiness of the people. Nor does he account for those studies showing that Americans have substantial tolerance for inequality. [2]

Trump’s election is mentioned, of course, but the causes of the vote for him are not hypothesized. Instead, numerous statistics in relation to the vote are listed. For instance, voters in the wealthy Greenwich area gave Trump a 13-point victory over Joe Biden in 2020, compared with only a two point win for Trump in 2016. In the 2016 West Virginia Democratic primary, Sanders received more votes than Clinton, and polls showed that Sanders could beat Trump in that state (256). In the campaign, Trump promised to restore the coal industry in the state, and beat Clinton 69% to 26%. Trump beat Biden there in 2020, 68% to 30%. In Chicago, a Democrat city, Trump lost to Biden, 57% to 40%.

There are many stats given in the book, but statistics are not explanations.

On the Run

Alice Goffman lived with a group of inner city youths as a participant observer. The study revealed the unintended consequences of an urban “get tough on crime” public policy. A causal theory was central to the narrative. It exposed how the crime policy has been deleterious for a poor urban population. Young men, afraid of arrest for minor offenses, had to live in hiding and move often. Relations with family, friends, and intimates were often fractured. 

The book is a paragon of empathic interpretation based on empirical observation. It shed light on actual facts; namely, the loss in the quality of life her subjects are being made to endure because they constantly fear the police. [3]

Evicted

Desmond presents a detailed ethnographic “portrait” (333) of the culture of eviction existing in the lower socio-economic strata of Milwaukee in the years 2008 to 2009. He shows how the laws related to housing in Milwaukee County, combined with other state and federal laws, cause the folks caught up in this culture to live as they do. Eviction is such a prominent threat that people shape their lives around trying to avoid it, or trying to adapt to it when it strikes. Individuals scramble in all sorts of ways to make rent. When they can’t, and the eviction notice comes, they must plea for time, borrow from family and friends, or try to defend themselves in the eviction court. If they lose in court, the sheriff could show up in two or three days and throw all their belongings out into the street. Unhoused women can lose custody of their children.

The thesis that insensitive laws cause hectic and frustrating lives is convincingly presented. Desmond describes how he went about his research, and the efforts he made to validate, or verify, his observations. (315f.)  He relied heavily on empathy to understand his subjects. (317-320)  Every event was observed first hand, unless stated otherwise in the endnotes. (326-327)  He hired a fact checker. (327) Every quote is from his digital recorder or official documents. (326) [4]

Reasons as causes.

For interpretivism, causal pressures are understood empathically. That is, the observer interprets the reasons for specific attitudes and behavior, and offers these reasons, or meanings, as causal explanations.

Journalism’s professional task is only to report the facts of behavior, causal theories are not required. Wildland is a fine piece of journalism, as one would expect from a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine like Evan Osnos. Wildland is not presented as interpretive political science, so it is not to be faulted for not being such.

Almost Interpretive Political Science

David Easton uses the term “narrow gauge theory” to refer to an explanation of a political subject matter that is less complete than one which shows the connections of the subject to the whole political system. (PS 66) On the Run and Evicted are instances of that kind of lesser included theory. Only implying, without specifying, their subject’s containment within a general political system, they both explain how laws, or city ordinances, actually effect the lives of people within the jurisdiction of those laws. However, by Easton’s standard, neither of these two books is fully political science, because they don’t situate their subject within the context of a general political system and show the links between the events and that system.

What is “Science”?

“Science,” as a general concept, can be defined as having elements that are common to both natural science and social science. Among these are an empirical orientation, fidelity to truth, systematic study, and a search for causal explanations of events undertaken within an intellectual and organizational discipline. These defining aspects of science need not appeal to the fiction of “objectivity.” Instead, as an element of organizational discipline, intersubjective agreement, in various degrees, as to the merit of knowledge claims is what actually happens in both natural and social science. Intersubjective agreement includes peer review, but also extends out into professional consensus.

The aim of “objectivity” is to transcend any dependency on the subjectivity of human knowers. But, if the human race passes into extinction, all human knowledge will pass with it. Human knowledge is always intersubjective.

Every scientific study is a unique endeavor. Present studies are always unique in time and circumstance, compared to prior studies. Even the personnel are unique. If the same people attempt to repeat a study, learning and experience over time will have made each person in the now different than they were then. Therefore, the ideal of “replication” is nonsense, and only similarity can ever be achieved.

“Testing,” too, is a myth, and a self-deception for those who believe it can result in objective proof. Interpretive political science can, and should, offer causal hypotheses, but the ultimate “test” of their validity is the intersubjective agreement of the professional community.

Interpretive political science is becoming a “science.” It is not there yet. One reason is that the organizational part is missing. The APSA, for instance, has no means nor commitment to validating interpretive causal hypotheses through professional consensus. Also, APSA membership has yet to formulate a consensus as to their professional self-definition. How do our studies differ, for instance, from those of Political History, Political Sociology, or Political Anthropology? What is Political Science as such?

Indeed, there may be some folks who reject the need for such self-definition, and are satisfied with a kind of free for all political science. In that view, there is no difference between interpretive political science and journalism because all professional “isms” constitute unwanted constraints. Personally, I reject such anarchical self-indulgence in favor of self-discipline – discipline according to the principles of interpretive political science.

Lacking an organizational context, interpretive political studies, like On the Run and Evicted, are unfinished business. They are in limbo because there is no professional organization responsible for validating or criticizing the causal hypotheses the works proffer.

Filling that void is up to us.

William J. Kelleher, Ph.D.

@InterpretivePo1

1. Although Goffman and Desmond are credentialed as sociologists, their research methods are the same as the methods which would be used in interpretive political science. Indeed, political scientist, Sanford Schram, has deemed Desmond’s work “good Political Science research.” Schram, Sanford. 2016. “Political Research Beyond Political Science.” Perspectives on Politics. Vol. 14, No. 3, pages 784-787, 786. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/div-classtitlepolitical-research-beyond-political-sciencediv/1F8B73ABE25CE9270960EA712BDB0BDA

2. “Most Americans Say There Is Too Much Economic Inequality in the U.S., but Fewer Than Half Call It a Top Priority.” By Juliana Horowitz, Ruth Igielnik, and Rakesh Kochhar. Pew Research Center. January 9, 2020.

https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/most-americans-say-there-is-too-much-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s-but-fewer-than-half-call-it-a-top-priority/

3. This book was discussed at the WPSA 2016 Pre-Conference Session entitled “Why Should We Believe You? Evidence and ‘Proof’ in Field and Other Interpretive Research.” (no link found)

4. I take issue with Schram, and criticize Desmond, for reasons discussed in, “Evicted: What would David Easton Say?” https://www.academia.edu/31990615/Evicted_What_would_David_Easton_Say

References

Desmond, Matthew. 2017. Evicted.

Easton, David. 1953. The Political System.

Goffman, Alice. 2014. On the Run.

For information on the occasional interpretivist chautauquas go to,

https://wpsavc.com/interpretive-methods-in-political-science/

RE: reasons as causes, and intersubjectivity in the practice of science:

Polanyi, Michael. 1958. Personal Knowledge

_____________. 1958. The Study of Man.

_____________. 1946. Science and Society.

_____________. 1967. The Tacit Dimension.

Yanow, Dvora and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea (eds). 2014. Interpretation and Method.

On ways to complete the organization of political science as a distinct discipline see,

“Back to the Future: How Understanding David Easton Can Give Guidance to the Caucus for a New Political Science”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320209515_Back_to_the_Future_How_Understanding_David_Easton_Can_Give_Guidance_to_the_Caucus_for_a_New_Political_Science, and “Normative Political Science – How to Measure the Goodness of a Political System”  http://ow.ly/54z750FG2N3