The Difference that Realism Makes: Social Science and the Politics of Consent

In: Politics & society, Band 20, Heft 2, S. 197-223

Abstract

An examination of the relations between epistemological commitments & the conduct of social science, hypothesizing that a commitment to philosophical realism offers decisive advantages over several influential varieties of empiricism & interpretivism. Social scientists guided by realist presuppositions are shown to be open to a comparatively wide range of hypotheses for explaining human action, & their substantive analyses are relatively uncontaminated by their epistemological commitments. This claim is illustrated & defended by reference to the political science literature on power & consent by Robert Dahl, Steven Lukes, John Gaventa, Quentin Skinner, Antonio Gramsci, James Scott, & others. It is also argued, in opposition to much of the literature on scientific realism, that although realists are open to considering the sorts of claims that Marxists & critical theorists want to advance, by itself, scientific realism gives us no reason to think that these claims are true. Whether or not a particular theory of power or consent is true is a subject for scientific study, nor armchair reflection. AA