Political Science
Daniel C. Miller
Conservation and Sustainable Development
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
Political science is the study of governments, public policies, and political processes, systems, and behavior. It is, in other words, the field of inquiry concerned with understanding politics. Ubiquitous in social life, politics shapes all manner of human interaction, from families to the global economy, from official halls of national governments to informal meetings of village elders, from voluntary associations to multinational corporations. Political scientists study such interactions in social and geographic contexts that stretch across the globe and throughout history in an effort to develop theories and tools to help explain how the political world works.
Politics has been defined variously as “who gets what, when, and how” (Lasswell 1936), the “authoritative allocation of values” (Easton 1953), or the “conciliation of conflicting interests” (Crick 1962). As these now-classic definitions indicate, politics is fundamentally about decision-making, power, and governance, is based on values, and results in allocation of resources. Any pattern of social behavior that involves these elements, then, can fall within the bailiwick of political science. This includes biodiversity conservation, which requires making value-based decisions that result in the allocation of rights and responsibilities (Mascia 2003).
Political science comprises several subfields, including comparative politics, international relations, political theory/philosophy, political economy, policy studies and analysis, and a host of other related fields. Political scientists use both humanistic and scientific perspectives and tools and a variety of methodological approaches to examine the political processes and systems,of the different countries and regions of the world (APSA 2007). Political science has long been interdisciplinary, drawing approaches, insights, and ideas from anthropology to zoology. The extent to which political science may be considered a “science,” as physics or biology, continues to spur lively debates within the discipline. A short survey of the history of political science will help clarify the origins and nature of this debate and set the stage for a discussion of the relevance of political science to biodiversity conservation.
A Brief History of Political Science
Politics are a central, inescapable human concern, present in all societies throughout time. The roots of political study can be traced to Ancient China, India, and Greece, among other contexts. As a full-fledged social scientific discipline, however, political science (also known as “political studies,” “government,” and, sometimes, just “politics”) developed relatively late, growing substantially with the rise of nineteenth century liberalism in Europe and the United States. The first university political science departments began in the late 1800s and the first political science professional society, the American Political Science Association, was founded in 1903.
Since that time, the discipline has grown markedly, with political scientists teaching in most large universities around the world and occupying positions in government, business, and non-profit sectors. Much of political science is concerned with analyzing of politics to advance positive theses and contribute to the understanding political phenomena in a cumulative scientific manner. However, some political scientists develop normative theses, expressing their personal views on political issues or making specific policy recommendations. While political scientists in all subfields have their own personal perspectives on political issues, most explicitly attempt to separate these views from their analysis of politics in the service of advancing scientific understanding. A notable exception within the discipline is political theory/philosophy, which is concerned with moral and ethical aspects of politics.
Beginning in the 1950s, a “behavioral revolution,” which emphasized the systematic and rigorously scientific study of individual and group behavior, coursed through the discipline. The dominant paradigm associated with this movement has led to a focus on the collection of large amounts of socio-political and economic data, and its analysis through statistical methods. The intellectual climate in political science, as a result, is highly receptive to the postulating of hypotheses followed by empirical verification and causal inference related to political trends. The goal of such an approach is to develop generalizations that explain individual and group political actions. More recently, institutional and rational choice approaches have been ascendant, spurring many political scientists to place greater emphasis on positive theorization and attempt to marry empirical verification with analytical models of politics.
However, many within the discipline have reacted against this view of the “proper” means and end of political study, which they criticize as being unrealistic, practically irrelevant, and overly narrow in terms of what issues and methodologies are the subject of study. Critics worry, for example, that privileging quantitative and formal modeling approaches (drawing especially from economics and mathematics) over qualitative and interpretive approaches (drawn from anthropology and history, among other disciplines) limits understanding of the richness and complexity of politics. Many also question whether the study of political phenomena can be exhausted by national-level studies, which are the typical focus of contemporary political scientists. Treating social phenomena as describable and analyzable in “objective” ways may deemphasize—even disdain—the application of political knowledge to practice and policy.
An apt metaphor for the discipline may be that of a Cubist painting, in which an image, fragmented and cacophonous, emerges if one looks closely enough. Perhaps the “painting” of political science will become more literal and cohesive over time, but it will be a work in progress in the foreseeable future, reflecting a congeries of attempts to understand better the complex and dynamic world of politics.
Political Science and Conservation
Political science has a great deal to offer conservation. Indeed, as two of the leading political scientists working on conservation-related issues, Arun Agrawal and Elinor Ostrom put it, “Without acute political analyses that take incentives and actions of multiple actors at different scales into account, there is no effective policymaking or governance related to biodiversity and, consequently, no protecting biodiversity” (Agrawal & Ostrom 2006). Given the pervasive nature of politics and its importance in shaping how resources, including biodiversity, are managed and allocated, one would think that the application of tools and theories developed within political science to biodiversity conservation would be widespread. Unfortunately, examples of fruitful collaboration between political science and conservation remain limited in number.
Political scientists, for their part, have not viewed environmental issues generally with much interest, let alone the more specific concern of biodiversity conservation. Electoral systems and practices, democracy, political institutions, international regimes, public opinion, state-society relations, conflict, war, violence, race and ethnicity, policymaking, strategic behavior, and policy outcomes are properly the province of the discipline according to most political scientists (Agrawal & Ostrom 2006). Furthermore, political scientists tend to value research at the nation-state level far more than that conducted on subnational units of analysis. Understanding and effectively addressing conservation problems, by contrast, requires concerted effort at many levels. It also necessitates understanding not only of formal (de jure) politics, such as laws and policies, but also informal and actual (de facto) political relations. The gap between law and policy, on the one hand, and actual practice and enforcement, on the other, has important implications for conservation. Despite often emphasizing the formal aspects of politics, political science can contribute to understanding this gap.
There are hopeful signs that as environmental issues, particularly climate change, but also biodiversity conservation, rise on the agenda of national governments and international policymaking institutions they are increasingly seen as an important subject for political scientists. Recent meetings of the major political science associations have included a growing number of environment-related sessions and have explicitly sought to reach across disciplinary boundaries.
Still, there is much scope for improved collaboration between political science and conservation.
Several broad areas stand out as particularly ripe for increased engagement and research across these two fields of inquiry. First, there is a considerable need to better understand how political dynamics, including policy choice, implementation, and performance, are linked with conservation outcomes (Mascia 2003). A second area is governance. This term, which stems from the Greek word for “steering,” implies several definitions. While important work on this topic has already been conducted, enhanced analytical clarity of the term and improved understanding how governance systems at multiple scales affect biodiversity outcomes stand as important frontiers for research (Agrawal & Ostrom). The decentralization of government authority, including the natural resource sector, and variegated processes of democratization seen in myriad contexts across the globe represent a third area where further research blending political science with a focus on conservation might prove especially fruitful. Finally, there is a need for better understanding of how norms of behavior, ideas, and institutions shape the politics of conservation and development efforts in different places over time.
References and Resources
Agrawal, A., and E. Ostrom. 2006. Political Science and Conservation Biology: A Dialog of the Deaf. Conservation Biology 20: 681-682.
Crick, B. 1962. In Defense of Politics. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Easton, D. 1953. The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.
Farr, J. 2003. Political Science: The Cambridge History of Science: Modern Social and Behavioral Sciences, 306-23.
Lasswell, H. 1936. Politics: Who gets what, when, how. McGraw-Hill, New York.
Lemos, M. and A. Agrawal. 2006. Environmental Governance. Annual Review of Environmental Resources. 31: 3.1-3.29
Mascia, M. 2003. Conservation and Political Science. Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting, Duluth, MN.
Professional Organizations
International Political Science Association
International Studies Association
American Political Science Association