bad political science behavior

Steve Walt weighs in with his take on the relative virtues of NSF funding of political science.  I agree with a fair amount of what he wrote (in particular the lNSF's listing of sponsored research outputs), but this part brought me up short: 

I can't say that I think Coburn is right, but I'm finding it hard to get too exercised about it. I say this in part because I think a lot of NSF-funded research has contributed to the "cult of irrelevance" that infects a lot of political science, and because the definition of "science" that has guided the grant-making process is excessively narrow.  But I also worry that trying to use federal dollars to encourage more policy-relevant research would end up politicizing academic life in some unfortunate ways.

Walt is conflating two different things here -- "policy-relevant research" and "publicly beneficial research."  Believe it or not, those two terms are not equivalent. 

The implicit assumption in Walt's post -- and a lot of discussions on this topic -- is that if political science research cannot produce policy-relevant advice, then it's not worthy of public funding.  But this gets the argument exactly backwards.  One would assume that, the greater the demand is for policy-relevant research, the more outsourcing and consultancies that would be pursued.  And, indeed, I think that's what you're seeing with the rise of political risk consultancies and the Defense Department's Minerva project. 

The key question to ask is whether that kind of policy-relevant research can be produced out of whole cloth or whether it rests on more basic research into political science and international relations -- the kind of basic research for which the free market would underprovide.  Much of Walt's own research, for example, rests on Kenneth Waltz's Theory of International Politics.  This is a book that proffers very little in the way of useful policy advice.  It is, nevertheless, a foundational text; an awful lot of realists build their policy prescriptions off of that book (and, if memory serves, Waltz received NSF funding to write that book).  Speaking for myself, a lot of what I wrote in All Politics Is Global is cribbed from rests on Albert Hirschman's more abstract work Exit, Voice and Loyalty. 

There is a continuum of research that exists in the socal sciences.  One could start with basic theoretical work and empirical data collection that seems far removed from policy relevance, and move to finely detailed policy memoranda.  I don't think the latter are terribly useful without resting on the former -- and one could argue that it's the former that would be underprovided without NSF funding. 

But I could very well be wrong -- perhaps policy analysis can be done independently of more abstract theories and models of political science.  That's a discussion worth having.  Requiring NSF-funded projects to have immediate policy relevance, however, cedes way too much terrain to critics of the discipline.  As Nobel-Prize-winning Elinor Ostrom pointed out, sometimes it's worth investigating the seemingly obvious -- because sometimes the obvious is wrong. 

When we last left off with Tom Coburn's jihad against public funding for political science, Coburn was arguing that, "Theories on political behavior are best left to CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, political parties, and the voters, rather than being funded out of taxpayers' wallets."

After the blog mockery that this observation received last week, I see that Coburn is doubling down on this strategy: 

[T]he Oklahoma Republicans office was not shy in its point-by-point rebuttal, with jokes about tweed jackets and the cushy life of the average college professor, and questions about whether ivory-tower political scientists aren't overmatched by the semiprofessionals on the cable and network talkfests.

"The irony of this complaint is that real-world political science practitioners employed by media outlets - [George] Stephanopoulos, [Peggy] Noonan, James Carville, Karl Rove, Paul Begala, Larry Kudlow, Bill Bennett (the list goes on) - may know more about the subject than any of our premier political science faculties," Coburn spokesman John Hart said.

Well, one could respond with jokes about the uber-cushy life of the average U.S. senator, or proffer jokes about Coburn's belief that he's a human lie detector, or just marvel at the vast foreign policy knowledge that Stephanopoulos, Noonan, Carville, Rove, Begala, Kudlow, and Bennett possess. 

But I honestly don't see the point anymore.  Matt Blackwell at the Social Science Statistics blog explains why:

In the 111th Congress, Coburn has had very little success with his amendments [batting 3 for 29, or .103--DD]...

Seven of the rejections are instances when Coburn's amendment was tabled without discussion. Most of the rejections have been of proposed budget cuts or banning funds from certain projects And this is just in this year. Out of all the roll call votes on Coburn-sponsored amendments in the Senate over his tenure, only 8 out of 68 have actually passed....

Tom Coburn knows that putting out no-win amendments is a great way to take positions in the Senate without committing to anything. Minority amendments are a costless signal of the blandest kind--even a political scientist can see that.

The American Political Science Association has informed me that Senator Tom Coburn has introduced a floor amendment to strip away all National Science Foundation funding for political science. 

Now, as a political scientist, I have some skin in this game.  I've never received a dollar of NSF funding, but much of my own work has built off of studies that were funded by the National Science Foundation.  So my natural instinct is to oppose this.  You want to chalk up my opposition to simple material interests, be my guest. 

Looking at Coburn's explanation for his amendment, however, I'm even more perturbed.  This is the first part of his explanation: 

When Americans think of the National Science Foundation, they think of cross-cutting science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Most would be surprised to hear that the agency spent $91.3 million over the last 10 years on political "science" and $325 million last year alone on social studies and economics....

NSF spent $91.3 million over the last 10 years on political "science." This amount could have been directed towards the study of biology, chemistry, geology, and physics. These are real fields of science in which new discoveries can yield real improvements in the lives of everyone.  

Actually, what surprised me is how little the NSF is spending on political science.  Tom Coburn is ticked off because the federal government is shelling out a whopping $9.13 million per year on political science?  We're running a $1 trillion deficit and Coburn thinks that poli sci's $9.13 million is what's crippling the hard sciences?   That dog won't hunt. 

Moving on....

The National Science Foundation has misspent tens of millions of dollars examining political science issues which in reality have little, if anything, to do with science [such as]....

The Human Rights Data Project: which concluded that the United States has been "increasingly willing to torture enemy combatants and imprison suspected terrorists," leading to a worldwide increase in "human rights violations" as others followed-suit;

Hmmm.... seems to me that finding a correlation of that significance is:

1. Most definitely science;
2. Pretty friggin' important.

Going through the rest of Coburn's list of "abominations," I can see one or two grants that might raise my hackles -- but that's going to be true of any grant-giving exercise.  See Henry Farrell and Andrew Gelman on this point as well.  As Gelman observes, "really, the list of 'wasteful projects' seems pretty lame to me. Golden Fleece material, it ain’t."

Here's the key paragraph in Coburn's explanation: 

If taxpayers are going to get their money's worth from the significant funding increases being entrusted to the National Science Foundation, the agency should be held accountable for how those funds are being spent. The political science program which does not withstand scrutiny should be eliminated immediately. Theories on political behavior are best left to CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, political parties, and the voters, rather than being funded out of taxpayers' wallets, especially when our nation has much more urgent needs and priorities (emphasis added).

OK, dear readers, I want you to close your eyes and imagine a world in which your entire knowledge of political behavior emanated only from CNN, pollsters, pundits, historians, candidates, and political parties.

Take your time.  I'll wait. 

If that world didn't scare you, well, then, you have nothing to worry about.  The rest of you can marvel at Coburn's failure of logic. 

Basic research in the hard sciences or the social sciences is a public good -- these things tend to get underprovided in a perfectly free market.  It's not clear to me at all why Coburn thinks that the $9 million spent on poli sci is a waste but the gazillions from the public trough spent on the hard sciences are not a waste when private corporations, industrial associations, scientific publications, universities, and private citizens couldn't fund this stuff. 

Now, I must grudgingly concede one point in Coburn's favor:  APSA's response to this is that it, "encourages political scientists to contact their Senator's office TODAY to ask them to vote against Coburn's amendment."  This suggests to me despite our massive federal subsidy, APSA has yet to understand how to influence political behavior. 

Having a couple of hundred political scientists call their Senators ain't going to matter.  Using our vast control of the liberal mainstream media the interwebs to generate media interest in Coburn acting like an ignorant jackass seems much more useful. 

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!!

[Um... is this news?  If Coburn regularly acts like an ignorant jackass, then would this be deemed newsworthy?--ed.  Uh-oh.]

My top ten notes, quotes, flotsam and jetsam from four days at the American Political Science Association's annual meeting in Toronto, Canada:

1)  I predict a bevy of papers over the next six months with titles like:

• "The Political Economy of International Roaming Charges."
• "States, Social Revolutions, and Why AT&T Sucks."
• "A Rational Choice Explanation of Why Your American Cell Phone Does Not Work in Canada."
• "An Empirical Test of Limited iPhone Usage in a Foreign Land." 

2)  Someone had the whimsy to locate a Hooters restaurant right next to the conference center.  And no, I do not know who went there.

3)  Pehaps related to the Hooters thing, the book room at APSA had a new wrinkle this year -- free five minute massages from a local massage school.  And hell yes, I took advantage of this offer! 

4)  Said by a book editor as someone was buying one of his press' books:  "Yeah.... good luck slogging through that one." 

5)  Books available for just three bucks at the conference -- indicating that these titles had either jumped the shark or never caught fire: 

• Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded
• Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine
• Andrew Bacevich's The Limits of Power
• Noam Chomsky's Failed States
• John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

6)  Overheard:  "I have to tell you my Cornel West and Ronald Reagan anecdote." 

7)  Someone asked a female political scientist with an ankle tattoo whether it was Tibetan.  She replied, "No, it's Elvish." 

8)  In conversation:  "Things I do not worry about disappearing:  death, taxes, and [a prominent political scientist's] ego." 

9)  I was puzzled and saddened by the paucity of panels about the financial meltdown and Great Recession.  I was really puzzled and saddened by the low attendance at the few panels that addressed this topic. 

10)  The most gratifying thing I heard at the conference:  "Your zombie post was awesome!!!"

I've been trying not to wade into The Israel Lobby waters, but this argument from Stephen Walt about why the book was panned in the United States caught me short: 

Douthat is correct that the mainstream reviews of the book [in the United States] were mostly negative, which is hardly surprising if one looks at who was chosen (or agreed) to review it. Given the hot water that Zbigniew Brzezinski got into when he said a few nice things about our original article, one can understand why people who liked the book might have been reluctant to say so in print.

In fact, the pattern of reviews does allow for an admittedly crude test of one of our arguments. We showed that people who criticize Israeli policy or the influence of the Israel lobby are virtually certain to face a firestorm of criticism and personal attacks in the United States. This is partly because such tactics are part of the standard MO for some key actors in the lobby, but also because mainstream media in the United States have tended to be protective of Israel in the past (this may be changing somewhat now). If we are right, one would expect mainstream reviews of our book in the United States to be negative, but reviews elsewhere should be more favorable. And that proved to be the case.

Let's label the above explanation the Cliff Poncier Hypothesis.  This certainly could be one explanation for why The Israel Lobby got panned in the United States.  To be sure, some of the reviews didn't seem to understand how political science works. 

Just for the sake of argument, however, I can think of at least two other possible explanations for this particular distribution of reviews:

1. The Cliff Poncier Hypothesis is too narrow:  no one reviewed The Israel Lobby based on its intrinsic merits.  Those reviewers comfortable with the status quo had an incentive to pan it, and those reviewers eager to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship loved it.  They loved it or hated it strictly based on whether the book's conclusions matched up with their own policy preferences.
2. The Israel Lobby was primarily a book about American politics and American foreign policy, and it presented a sloppy, simplistic account of how such politics work.  American reviewers, who are more aware of how American politics actually works, would therefore be expected to provide more negative reviews of these sections of the book. 

I'll let the readers be the judge of which hypothesis best explains the pattern of reviews.   

1. SWEET FANCY MOSES!!!
2. Ewwwwwww.....
3. If true, this is really despicable behavior on the professor's part
4. A political scientist?  I'm embarrassed for my profession...
5. Much as I might downplay how often this occurs, it's really disturbing to read about it when it does occur. 
6. Ewwww again.
7. Hmmm... I wonder if the creep ever said, "What nice bribes you have..."