Political science is one of the social sciences, the scientific disciplines focused on understanding human society.
Political scientists focus on causal questions:
Goal: understand why certain political events occur, or don't occur.
For example…
why did Barack Obama win the 2012 presidential election?
why do Republicans have more seats in Congress than the Democrats?
We want to explain political events, not just describe them.
In the natural and biological sciences, most outcomes have a single cause (or, at worst, a small number of causes).
Events in the social or political world tend to have multiple causes.
The causes of political and social events tend not to be deterministic either.
To believe something caused something else to happen, we must show that there is more than a correlation or association between the two phenomena.
Example: when ice cream sales go up, so do residential burglaries.
People are unlikely to be turning to a life of crime due to the influence of ice cream.
People are unlikely to be breaking into peoples' houses because they can't otherwise afford ice cream.
More likely explanation: some other factor is causing more people to commit crimes and more people to eat ice cream.
Weather
Cities that have more firefighters tend to have more fires.
Firefighters are unlikely to be creating additional fires.
More likely explanation: bigger cities have more fires than smaller cities.
An apparent relationship between two concepts (or variables) that reflects correlation but not causation is referred to as a spurious relationship.
Both the correlation between ice cream sales and burglaries, and the correlation between firefighters and fires, are said to be spurious.
Politicians who receive donations (directly or indirectly) from interest groups like the National Rifle Association are more likely to support the group's positions in Congress.
Are interest groups “buying votes” with their contributions?
This interpretation is tempting, but it's also possible that groups like the NRA only give money to politicians who already agree and vote with them.
Need a more sophisticated strategy than simply observing correlations to decide which explanation is true.
For something to cause something else…
the cause must precede the effect.
World War II did not cause World War I.
The 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri did not cause the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012.
we must rule out the other factors that may have affected the outcome.
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