AREA STUDIES vs. RATIONAL CHOICE

If a Buddhist monk self-immolated himself, would he be acting rationally within his own preference system, or would it be an irrational action explicable only by the draw of religion or culture?

The Harvard government department has two answers, a division which reflects a split among political scientists throughout academia.

On the first side lie rational choice theorists, including department chair Kenneth A. Shepsle, who believe the increasing use of formal models has made the field more rigorous and respected.

"Quantitative and theoretical tools are part of the standard training of an Americanist today," Shepsle says, noting that he feels those tools will move into all other fields of political science, though he says that field work will be not change drastically in the "foreseeable future."

On the other side lie many of Harvard's brightest stars, so called 'area' specialists, many of whom feel that the increasing emphasis on rational choice has obscured the need to utilize a variety of other important modes of analysis.

"While I think rational choice analysis has added a great deal to the field and will continue to be influential, I don't believe it will become the dominant paradigm, nor do I think that statistical studies are the only way to study politics," says Professor of Government Peter A. Hall, who studies comparative political economy with an emphasis on Western Europe.

Implications of the Debate

At the center of much of the controversy is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government Robert H. Bates, himself a specialist in Africa, who sparked this debate throughout academia with a four page article in the June issue of Political Science and Politics.

In the article, Bates argues that area studies as traditionally defined have little place in universities. He asks that political science departments "re-think their approach to hiring junior personnel" suggesting that considering the limited time junior faculty members have, mastery over rational choice will suffice if a combination of the fields cannot be achieved.

Northwestern University professor Bruce Cumings responded in the fall issue of the Asian Studies Newsletter, saying that Bates' assertions reflect the reality of many current tenure proceedings.

"This statement, outrageous and arrogant as it is, nonetheless reflects a prevalent attitude that has threatened or derailed the careers of many young social scientists with language and expertise in recent years," Cumings writes.

Sources who asked not to be identified said the government department schism had begun to affect tenure cases at Harvard.

Last May, UCLA Political Science Chair Ronald L. Rogowski and University of California at Berkeley Professor Robert Powell came up for tenure at Harvard but were defeated at the departmental level.

Both heavily utilize rational choice in their work, which observers said could have influenced the decision not to give them tenure.

Although he refused to comment on individual cases, Shepsle responded to an e-mailed question about Powell and Rogowski and said candidates nominated for tenure are not considered on the basis of whether they use rational choice theory, but rather on the impact their work has on the field.

"Some rational choice scholars do well according to this latter criterion and some do not; those who do not use rational choice distribute themselves in a similar fashion," Shepsle writes.

Over the past few years, tenured appointments have included Professors of Government Jeffrey Frieden and Lisa L. Martin, both of whom study international political economy wiht an emphasis on rational choice models.

One appointment that rational choice proponents point to as evidence of the continued pluralism of the department is that of Chinese scholar Elizabeth Perry.

"My sense is that it is a theoretically diverse department," says Perry, who joined the Faculty this fall after "ask[ing] a lot of questions" about whether they would accept her focus of scholarship.

Exploring the Differences

Associate Professor of Government Ashutosh Varshney said that he thought that it was not a question of which approach was better but rather which approach was better for a particular query.

"Rational choice is excellent at solving deductive puzzles. But rational choice has a lot of trouble explaining mass mobilization," says Varshney, who wrote his early book with a rational choice focus and a more recent work which seeks to generalize from largely empirical data about India.

In an article on this debate in the American Political Science Association Comparative Politics' summer newsletter, Varshney acknowledges the contributions of rational choice to the study of economics and institutions in comparative politics but very pointedly states the limits of rational choice explanations.

"Just as it is hard to explain--given rational calculations of cost and benefit, why people vote--it is also hard to understand--with tools of rational choice--why so many people in the world demonstrate ethnic fervor or embrace nationalism," Varshney writes.

Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences A. Iain Johnston, who describes his own methods as an eclectic mix, says the primary difference between area specialists and those who believe in rational choice is a greater emphasis on the part of the former on the importance of tradition and culture.

"Certain sets of behaviors are so deeply internalized that they are taken for granted and not questioned. It is those kinds of behaviors that rational choice has traditionally not focused on," Johnston says.

Is It Generalizable?

Many scholars who employ rational choice have focused their criticisms on area specialists who do not generate supportable theories that are applicable across different cultures and nations.

Bates, who has obtained an initial grant to begin an Africa Studies center at Harvard, thinks the ability to generalize is at the center of well-done area-specific research.

"What's the payoff of our region? What can we learn there that is more powerful than what we can learn somewhere else? If so [foundations] should allocate resources. If not, then what are you doing?" Bates says.

Hall says that almost all area studies scholars are producing research that is applicable cross-culturally, despite grounding in a particular region.

"When we use the term area studies, it is very important to remember that an older style of area studies that focused on single countries and avoided generalizations was superseded by generalized inquiry at least 20 years ago," Hall says.

Complementary Approaches?

Many professors say the two approaches are more reconcilable than they are made out to be.

But the very way that each side characterizes this synthesis indicates the differences that remain.

In particular, rational choice theorists note that area specialists often are able to provide the data needed for them to map formal models across a number of countries.

"A graduate student might be training with Gary King [who teaches a class in advanced quantitative research methodology] and he might be sent to [Director of the Russian Research Center] Timothy Colton. Colton has access to data in post-Soviet Russia which we couldn't get otherwise," Shepsle says.

Colton also does not see the approaches as incompatible, but for different reasons. He says they both try to address the same questions using different means.

"[Rational choice] is a natural way of studying comparative politics, but it's not the only way," says Colton, who is also Feldberg Professor of Government and Russian Studies. "I don't see why [rational choice] is at cross-purposes... with the multi-culture studies that we have built since the end of the war."

Hall also believes that the rational choice approaches have much to add to the debate but formal theorists often overstate their importance.

"There is no doubt that some scholars, although not necessarily at Harvard, believe that rational choice has proven to be a master key that can unify the discourse and render it more scientific," Hall says. "Despite my own interest in rational choice analysis I'm skeptical of that view. It has yet to be proven, and that's why I attach great value to scholarly pluralism, to debate among a wide range of views."

Effect on Students

Graduate students, as the future political scientists for America, often serve as the battleground for many of these debates.

Most students say they see a division more between quantitative versus qualitative methods than between the similar area studies versus rational choice debate.

One student who did not want to be identified says about half of her classmates took five of their 10 required courses in either quantitative methods or formal modeling.

"There is little room for your major field if you take all these methodological courses encouraged by the current regime," says the international relations student.

But other students say that area studies are welcome at the University.

"[Rational choice] is a healthy move toward rigor in studies," says Pepper D. Culpepper, a graduate student in comparative politics. "[But] the department maintains a lot of value for the importance of area studies."

Comparative politics student Mark E. Duckenfield says statistics and quantitative methods, not rational choice, have become the center of the department's focus, sometimes to the detriment of scholarship.

"It reminds me of the story of someone looking for his glasses under the light post. He may have lost them across the street, but he looks up at where the light post is. Statistics are the light post," he says.

But perhaps the harshest criticism comes from a former government department graduate student.

"There is a blindly social science approach which focuses on the science and ignores the social. It is unclear to students coming in that rational choice is going to be as dominant as it finally appears," says the student, who asked not to be identified

Effect on Students

Graduate students, as the future political scientists for America, often serve as the battleground for many of these debates.

Most students say they see a division more between quantitative versus qualitative methods than between the similar area studies versus rational choice debate.

One student who did not want to be identified says about half of her classmates took five of their 10 required courses in either quantitative methods or formal modeling.

"There is little room for your major field if you take all these methodological courses encouraged by the current regime," says the international relations student.

But other students say that area studies are welcome at the University.

"[Rational choice] is a healthy move toward rigor in studies," says Pepper D. Culpepper, a graduate student in comparative politics. "[But] the department maintains a lot of value for the importance of area studies."

Comparative politics student Mark E. Duckenfield says statistics and quantitative methods, not rational choice, have become the center of the department's focus, sometimes to the detriment of scholarship.

"It reminds me of the story of someone looking for his glasses under the light post. He may have lost them across the street, but he looks up at where the light post is. Statistics are the light post," he says.

But perhaps the harshest criticism comes from a former government department graduate student.

"There is a blindly social science approach which focuses on the science and ignores the social. It is unclear to students coming in that rational choice is going to be as dominant as it finally appears," says the student, who asked not to be identified