An advocate of natural rights continues his/her presentation[1] …
This posting serves as the last one to apply Eugene Meehan’s concerns
regarding the viability of the political systems model.[2] Those last concerns, predictability and control,
and their treatment here serves as a sort of introduction to the methodology
that model mostly employs.
In terms of
predictability, this systems approach does provide viable predictive insights into
the political phenomena it studies.
While it was gaining prominence in the 1950s, one can still find among political
science researchers its centrality in how they conduct their research. This following description from Tufts
University gives one a sense of this role which mostly relies on the model’s
predictive power:
The study of political
systems and theories represents an essential basis for explaining,
understanding, and comparing the units and actors that comprise the world of
the early 21st century. As a field, Political Systems and Theories encompasses
courses whose focus is alternative theoretical approaches for the conduct of
research and analysis about political systems, major forces shaping the
emerging world, the nature of international change and continuity, and the
basis for theoretical development. The Political Systems and Theories field
offers students the opportunity to explore, evaluate, and compare [mid-range] theories
about such crucially important phenomena as power, legitimacy, institutions,
cooperation, conflict, peace, and war. Conceptually, the field is (or should
be) integral to, and an essential prerequisite for, courses that comprise the
practical parts of the curriculum. Students taking this field are expected to
acquire basic knowledge about the major theories that shape international and
comparative politics.[3]
This sort of overview implies a central role being attributed to systems
theory by crediting it the central position in the discipline even today.
Why? The results of ensuing studies provide
legitimate insights into political behavior.
Of course, political science is not a hard science and predictability is
highly qualified as is the case in not just political science but in all of the
social sciences. For example, Drew Bowlsby,
et al. report on such challenges political science research faces when it comes
to predictability, so the ability to predict is significantly constrained and
can only be considered in relative terms within the social sciences.[4]
The derived findings from this literature of
political science, which are deemed of importance to the knowledge of secondary
students in preparation to becoming viable citizens, should be included in
their curricular studies. It offers the
best opportunities in understanding students’ social environments. What people find when looking at corporate
practices, for example, is increased reliance on political studies based on
this model to make sense of their political realities.[5]
Finally, the question of whether the use of the
construct fulfills its purposes as outlined above needs to be addressed. That is, does this construct imply ways of
controlling the phenomena in question?
This dialectic argument is claiming that, as illustrated over the
postings dedicated to this model, the construct penetrates the workings of
government and political actors in general, so as to give consumer-citizens
enormous insight into governance and politics.
Courses of study which apply this construct
have the model serve as foundations or “springboards” by which to identify
those aspects of the American political system which citizens need to know in
order to have any chance of being effective in pursuing their goals. By emphasizing the realities of the American
political conditions, not much time or concerns are diverted into historical
aspects that add little to the effectiveness of political actors in the
present.
Historical elements are appropriately subsumed under
cultural factors that affect current political decision-making behaviors. The construct does not make a priori
judgments about any particular political arrangements, and can, therefore, be
easily applied in such ways as to render the political arrangements of an individual
country – like the US – in neutral fashion, something historical approaches
have found difficult to sustain.
If students accept that this nation’s cultural
expectations of government are for the respective state to protect its
citizens’ rights and to meet the demands of their competing consumer-citizens,[6]
the political systems approach serves most completely the purposes of that perspective.
Methodology
The methodology most
associated with the political systems approach is the scientific method.[7] Because of the nature of social aspects of
political science, strategies of inquiry have been developed which include
survey research methods, observations, ethno-methodologies, document study,
simulation and games, as well as experiments.
The purpose here, though,
is not to review the scientific methodology of the discipline, but rather to describe
how this methodology incorporates the political systems approach through
classroom use. In that pursuit, a
scientific approach is again the most conducive to those teachers so
disposed.
That is, by applying the scientific method to
the problems associated with teaching practical political information,
educators can avail themselves of the most congruent method to deliver the
subject matter if that presentation adheres to the political systems approach. Many in the field of social studies – e.g.,
the main professional organization, the NCSS[8] –
has encouraged such instructional options.
The judgment of this
dialectic argument is that the method associated with the behavioral learning
theories is the truest to the scientific mode since it relies on studying
observable human behavior. As related to
the systems approach, as described in this account, behavior is the focus of
concern:
…
behavioral learning theories, [are] explanations for learning that emphasize
observable behavior. Behavioral theories
emphasize the ways in which pleasurable or painful consequences of behavior
change individuals’ behavior over time and ways in which individuals model
their behavior on that of others … Behavioral learning theorists try to
discover principles of behavior that apply to all living beings …[9]
This concern over
classroom instruction will be the initial topic of the next posting. Apart from the dialectic presentation, this
blogger believes that nothing has affected civics education since the 1970s
more than this shift to the political systems model in arranging its subject
matter.
[1] This presentation continues
with this posting. The reader is informed that the claims made in
this posting do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or knowledge of this
blogger. Instead, the posting is a representation of what an
advocate of the natural rights view might present. This
is done to present a dialectic position of that construct. This series of postings begins with “Judging
Natural Rights View, I,” August 2, 2022.
[2]
Eugene
Meehan in the mid-twentieth century provides the following list of criteria by
which one can evaluate or ask questions of any theory, but given its thrust,
they seem most applicable to scientifically derived theories. The list is: Comprehension, Power, Precision, Consistency
or Reliability, Isomorphism, Compatibility, Predictability, Control. See Eugene
J. Meehan, Contemporary Political Thought:
A Critical Study (Homewood, IL:
Dorsey Press, 1967).
[3] “Political Systems & Theories/About the Field,”
Fletcher/Tufts University (n.d.), assessed September 11, 2022, https://fletcher.tufts.edu/academics/courses-general-requirements/fields-study/political-systems-theories.
[4] See Drew Bowlsby, Erica Chenoweth, Cullen Hendrix,
and Jonathan D. Moyer, “The Future Is a Moving Target: Predicting Political Instability,” Cambridge
University Press (February 20, 2019), accessed September 11, 2022, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-political-science/article/abs/future-is-a-moving-target-predicting-political-instability/0028744BE1AFF83F879E7759D798D88A.
[5]
For example, Daniel Nyberg, “Corporations, Politics, and Democracy: Corporate Political Activities as Political
Corruption,” Organization Theory (January 18, 2021), accessed September 11,
2022, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2631787720982618.
[6]
Jeffrey Reiman, “Liberalism and Its Critics,” in The Liberalism-Communitarianism Debate,
ed. C. F. Delaney (Lanhan, MD: Rowman
and Litttlefield Publishers, Inc., 1994), 19-37.
[7]
John G. Gunnell, “Political Theory and Political Science,” in The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political
Thought, edited by David Miller, Janet Coleman, William Connolly, and Alan
Ryan (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1987),
386-930 AND Janet Buttolph Johnson, H. T. Reynolds, and Jason D. Mycoff, Political
Science Research Methods, 8th Edition (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2015).
[8]
National
Council for the Social Studies, Preparing Students for College, Career, and
Civic Life (C3) (Washington, D. C.:
NCSS, 2013), accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.socialstudies.org/c3.
[9] Robert Slavin, Educational Psychology: Theory and Practice (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1994), 265.
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