{"id":3267,"date":"2016-11-01T04:02:37","date_gmt":"2016-11-01T04:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/course.oeru.org\/research-methods\/?page_id=3267"},"modified":"2016-11-01T04:02:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-01T04:02:37","slug":"theory-types","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/course.oeru.org\/research-methods\/modules-1-3\/module-2-literature-review\/theory-types\/","title":{"rendered":"Theory types"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Making the sense of the literature: types of theories in political science<\/span><\/h2>\n

As you read through political science research sources, you can probably notice many different kinds of research, and different kinds of theory they produce. There are two main types of theory in political science. One kind describes<\/b> the way reality is, based on empirical evidence. this kind is called descriptive<\/b><\/i> or empirical<\/b><\/i> theory. The other kind tells you how things should be so that other things happen. This kind is called normative<\/b><\/i> theory.\n<\/p>\n

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\"Beco<\/a> <\/p>\n
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Let’s take a bit more of a look at them both.\n<\/p>\n

Descriptive theory<\/span><\/h3>\n

Social sciences seek to develop empirical theory<\/b><\/i>. “Empirical” refers to things that can be experienced through the five senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, or (in the case of political corruption) smelling. \u201cTheory\u201d basically means explanation. An empirical theory of politics, then, is an explanation of why people behave the way they do politically.\n<\/p>\n

This approach is has become a very important part of political science. In 2001, for example, almost three-quarters of the articles in arguably the top three scholarly journals in the discipline (the American Political Science Review<\/i>, the American Journal of Political Science<\/i>, and the Journal of Politics<\/i>) included analysis of empirical data.[1]<\/a><\/sup>[1]\n<\/p>\n

If a social scientist (or anyone else) observes people engaging in political behavior, he or she will need to focus on certain characteristics of the people being observed. The observer may wonder why some people differ from others in their political characteristics. Why, for example, do some people vote for the Labour party, while others vote for the Greens?\n<\/p>\n

Not all empirical study of politics involves the methodology of social science. Although Aristotle’s classification of city-states had an empirical component, he did not develop or test hypotheses. This is not surprising: the scientific method as we know it was developed about 400 years ago though the writings of Francis Bacon (1561-1626) and others, and only spread to the social sciences until the 1800s. This scientific method became a major part of the political science mainstream well into the 20th Century. The term \u201cdescriptive analysis\u201d remains an essential part of the discipline.
\nWhat are the important differences between political science social science? They are listed below, and summarised in Table ‘Characteristics of research fields’.\n<\/p>\n

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  1. Social science is analytic<\/i>. It breaks down problems into relatively small components for study. Descriptive analysis, used in political science, is more holistic, more likely to focus on the big picture.\n<\/li>\n
  2. Where social science usually looks for typical<\/i> patterns in human behavior, descriptive analysis in political science emphasizes unique<\/i> behaviour. A social science research project might involve survey research, in which a sample of a larger population is interviewed in order to find out how and why people in the population think and act. A descriptive study in political science, on the other hand, might consist of a biography of a leader who is \u201cone of a kind.\u201d\n<\/li>\n
  3. In order to be as precise as possible in carrying out analysis, social science tends to pay a great deal of attention to questions of methodology \u2013 great care is taken to obtain accurate measures and conduct careful analysis. This in turn has made the social sciences much more quantitative. While the desire for precision is admirable, critics have a point when they argue that at times this quest leads political scientists to focus on the most readily operationalised aspects of a question, rather than on those aspects that are most important.\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    \n\t\t\t\"reflection\"\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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    Reflection activity<\/h2>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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