reading normative approach (Baubock)

Question 1

connecting empirical research and normative theory

Answer 1

they have become separate branches, but Baubock argues that:

• empirical research can be guided by normative theory
• normative theory can be improved by empirical research

Question 2

what is normative political theory?

Answer 2

academic discipline that uses specific modes of argument in order to address a specific set of questions (about the best form of politics, rights and freedoms, legitimacy, political community etc)

common ground different theories: prescriptive/evaluative statements are treated as sets of propositions that must be internally consistent and must be defended against opposing views, rather than as subjective opinions whose validity can’t be established through argument

Question 3

history normative theory

Answer 3

main part of political science until the early 20th century: rise of positivism -> normative theory as legacy of the past

was often combined with other theories/approaches: e.g. comparative politics

social justice debates 1970s (esp. role of Rawls) brought normative theory back in the discipline

Question 4

positivist dispute Germany

Answer 4

• critical rationalists: social science should be falsifiable (they followed Popper)
• Frankfurt School: social science has inescapable value judgments -> scientists should adopt a critical perspective focusing on the basic structures of late capitalist societies

Question 5

applied normative theory

Answer 5

1990s

• institutionalist focus -> justice not as virtue of individual human actions (as moral philosophies considered)

Question 6

four themes that have become prominent in post-Rawlsian liberal egalitarian theory

• the institutionalist and contextualist turn

Answer 6

• non-ideal theory (Rawls argued that it is important to look at what justice means under ideal conditions, Joseph Carens argued that there must be alternating between idealistic and realistic approaches)
• global justice (Rawls focused on domestic justice and had a much thinner conception of international justice, post-Rawls argues for a global justice idea)
• closed societies (Rawls focused on states and didn’t address migration (or made it a state-state relation rather than global), post-Rawls emphasizes global impact of migration + mentions free movement)
• self-determination and minority rights (Rawls placed importance on self-governance, he assumes that border of peoples and states coincide, in reality this isn’t true)

Question 7

normative theory and the social sciences: can the gap be bridged?

Answer 7

• institutionalist and contexualist turn -> normative theory more open to comparative and historical knowledge -> narrower gap
• normative theory may not be science, but it is more than a scientists’ ethical preferences
• normative questions arise unavoidably in the social sciences
• positivists acknowledge/argue that values play a role in what is studied (it has to have societal importance, some argue that social science should be problem-driven rather than method-driven)

Question 8

in what ways do normative questions arise unavoidably in the social sciences?

Answer 8

1. ethical questions about the selection of research objects, impact of its methods etc.
2. research objects can’t be clinically isolated -> describing + categorizing is ethically laden and makes prescriptive expectations about behaviour
3. legitimacy of political power and authority as research content (not merely of its societal research context)

Question 9

three views on political power

Answer 9

Arendt: political power is not force and violence, power is the manifestation of a society’s capacity or collective action and is thus inherently in need of legitimation

• dark view of political power = power is unpredictable, irresponsible and pervasive in its impact -> power can never be normatively legitimate + normative theorists merely help to accumulate or stabilize political power by providing arguments that can become tools of ideological hegemony
• rationalist: pursuit of political power is guided by instrumental rationality of individual or collective agents: power as tool for satisfaction of preferences -> discursive legitimation of power is irrelevant or misleading for explanatory purposes
• normative: political power is generally oriented towards the common good -> it can be justified

Question 10

tradition-driven approaches vs problem-driven approaches

Answer 10

tradition driven=
e.g. study of history of political ideas

tradition is important to build on earlier insights + prevents

tradition inspires new interpretations that move beyond tradition

normative political scientists should listen to historians of ideas

problem-driven and tradition-driven
should be clearly seen as complementary rather than substitutive

Question 11

how to combine normative theory and empirical research?

Answer 11

normative questions can inform the choice of specific empirical research topics and methodologies

• the empirical study of normative attitudes and beliefs
• studying institutionally embedded norms (empirically researching them is crucial to be able to defend certain institutions
• qualitative case studies (normative theories’ methodology is often a case-study)
• quantitative comparative studies: normative studies with findings from large-N are rarely supported (historians + philosophers little training), normative theorists can use data evidence to support their claims, but it is likely it will be contested on methodological grounds (e.g. problems with isolating dependent and independent variables)

Question 12

the ethics of normative theorizing

Answer 12

• applied normative theorists are often accused of abandoning value-free explanation as the only true scientific goal
• not-normative theorists often do have some normative preferences, the danger is that they don’t often mention them + their objections

normative science should be kept, it should be opened to critique of other approaches