Poli Sci Fi

An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction

Michael A. Allen, Justin S. Vaughn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317266754
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Poli Sci Fi: An Introduction to Political Science through Science Fiction allows readers, students, and instructors to explore the multiple worlds of science fiction while gaining a firm grasp of core political science concepts. This carefully composed text is comprised of sixteen brief chapters, each of which takes a prominent science fiction film or television episode and uses it to explore fundamental components of political science. The book is designed to serve as a supplemental text for undergraduate political science courses, especially Introduction to Political Science. The structure and content of the volume is shaped around the organization and coverage of several leading texts in this area, and includes major parts devoted to theory and epistemology, political behavior, institutions, identity, states, and inter-state relations. Its emphasis on science fiction—and particularly on popular movies and television programs—speaks to the popularity of the genre as well as the growing understanding that popular culture can be an extraordinarily successful vehicle for communicating difficult yet foundational concepts, especially to introductory level college students.

PART I

Theory and Epistemology

1

Improving Public Policy

Measurement and Prediction in Minority Report

Jennifer Kelkres

The Washington Center

An early scene in Minority Report shows a television ad encouraging voters to vote “yes” on National PreCrime Initiative. The advertisement states that the District of Columbia has had the PreCrime policy for six years and has eliminated murder in the district. Should the voters support the expansion of this program across the nation? One way to answer that question is to consider whether it supports American values. A politician onscreen is ready with the answer: “We want…to ensure that what keeps us safe will also keep us free.” Those are fundamental values in America: freedom and the value of human life. A second way for voters to consider the policy is to consider whether the policy is effective. A chorus of voices in the advertisement agrees, “It works.” The ad makes an effective case for the two key questions in evaluating public policy: “Will it work?” and “Should we do this? Is it morally right?”

This fictional advertisement provides a succinct look at the theme of Minority Report, which is the use of analysis to improve public policy decisions. The film contrasts two approaches, examining both facts and moral values to make the best policy decisions. Political debates often become confusing for voters in part because these two approaches to decision making are so different. Politicians can argue without addressing their opponent’s point, by responding to moral claims with a factual argument, or vice versa. Understanding the difference between factual and moral queries can simplify politics for voters, which is a worthy goal and essential to a functioning democracy.

Governments have the power to control most aspects of life within their borders, from the roads we drive on to the quality of water that comes out of the tap. A government can maintain defenses, build infrastructure, regulate the products we buy, and through tax incentives control which industries provide job opportunities. All of these are the sum result of many decisions concerning the level of taxation, and the ways the government invests our tax dollars. These political decisions are mostly discussed in the US in terms of liberalism and conservatism, that is, what are our priorities to invest in? However, this chapter addresses a more fundamental question: How do we know which policies work? Which policy option will provide the greatest return on the investment?

This chapter will address three topics. First, the chapter will present two types of analysis and point out the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. Second, we will delve deeper into the scientific process used to make predictions. Third, the chapter details problems an analyst could encounter with measurement. Not everyone understands the best practices of the scientific approach. The goal of this chapter is to illuminate the predictive power of the scientific approach. Using measurement and prediction is an effective way to make political decisions. The movie, Minority Report, is based on a short story by an author, Philip K. Dick, and seems to have had the intention to use this story as a way to teach about the scientific method. The story of Minority Report illuminates obvious pitfalls of the method, but it also demonstrates the tremendous possibilities and power of social science to solve problems.

Solving Societal Problems: Morals versus Science

The purpose of this section is to clarify the difference between moral arguments and arguments based on scientific analysis. The story presents the two types of analysis, both moral (“Should PreCrime be the policy choice for the nation?”) and empirical (“Does PreCrime work?”). The purpose of this paper is not to suggest that one is more valuable than the other, but rather, the two complement one another, but cannot be used to refute each other. They are both essential to decision making and solving problems in the world.

A foundational concept in political science is political analysis, meaning, the method used to solve a puzzle. Public policy offers many puzzles worthy of study, for example: Does government surveillance make America safer? Is a fence or deportation the most efficient way to limit illegal immigration? Does increasing free trade create more jobs in America? Does raising the minimum wage help or hurt the economy? As voters, we are often confused about how to answer these difficult questions. There are two main approaches, which are usually referred to as positivism and normativism.

Normativism approaches the world in terms of “What ought to be happening in the world?” whereas positivism asks “What is happening in the world?” Both questions are necessary to direct public policy. The story of Minority Report contrasts these two questions. As head of the PreCrime Unit, Anderton is responsible for making the unit’s operations effective – a positivist endeavor. As the story unfolds, he also ponders whether their work is justified. He is predicted to become a murderer, but does not commit the crime. Knowing that some of those prisoners could have been innocent, Anderton questions whether he ought to have jailed so many people. He says to Dr. Iris Hineman, cofounder of PreCrime, “What about those people I put away with alternate futures? My God, if the country knew there was a chance they might not…[support the policy of PreCrime].” Iris replies, “The system would collapse.” Although PreCrime was found to be efficient, it was ultimately demolished because decision makers decided that justice was more important than safety – a normative decision. As Dr. Iris Hineman said to Chief John Anderton, “Who wants a justice system that instills doubt?”

That conversation in the greenhouse is a key example of normative thinking because it prioritizes the way people ought to be treated. The efforts to colonize the moon, to conduct stem cell research, to build nuclear bombs, and to intervene in foreign wars are all policies in which there is a clear contrast between positivist and normative decision making. The fact that the government is able to accomplish a task does not make it something the government ought to do.

Normativist work is interested in prescribing optimal solutions to political, social, and economic problems. Depending on your values, the definition of the “best” outcome could be quite different. Consider that someone who values equality may prefer affirmative action policies, but someone who values freedom may not. However, most policy solutions typically cannot maximize several values at once, so our policy choices require some compromise. Usually, some freedom is sacrificed when we prioritize equality or efficiency, and vice versa. Determining which values should guide these choices is the essence of normative analysis, “an approach to the study of politics that is based on examining fundamental and enduring questions.”¹ Political philosophy and political theory use normative analysis.

In contrast, positivism is a term used to refer to the philosophy of seeking facts to make decisions. The facts of the situation determine what outcomes are possible. The facts inform the analyst about whether the economy is growing or is in decline; whether illegal immigration is increasing or decreasing; or whether there is a tax surplus or deficit. This is empirical analysis, an approach that “seeks to identify observable phenomena in the real world with a view toward establishing what is, rather than what ought to be.”²

The tension between the two approaches can be felt in the film. At the outset of Minority Report, a federal agent, Ed Witwer, arrives at the D.C. PreCrime unit ready to investigate the system for any weaknesses. As the police chief of the unit, Anderton is responsible for convincing Witwer that the unit’s processes are flawless and ready to be duplicated across the nation. Although the department seemed to be performing perfectly – capturing all murderers – several flaws in the system become apparent as the story plays out. Anderton is accused of a future murder, and he goes on the run to clear his name and investigate this apparent flaw in the PreCrime system. He ultimately discovers that the founders of PreCrime, Iris Hineman and Lamar Burgess, kept secrets about the program to ensure its popularity.

The secrets kept by the two cofounders mirror the theme. Burgess concealed information about how PreCrime could not exist, and Hineman’s secret concerned why PreCrime should not exist. Burgess murdered the mother of Agatha, the most valuable of the PreCognitive agents (known as “PreCogs”), because she wanted to withdraw Agatha from her captive life as a PreCog. Losing Agatha would have doomed the program. Hineman hid the fact that occasionally one of the PreCogs would see a different future from the other two PreCogs. This knowledge would have undermined support for the program given that the future is not predetermined and that PreCrime is fallible. This potential of a different future – the “minority report” – is where the movie derives its name. While acknowledging the importance of moral guidance, the rest of this chapter focuses on highlighting the advantages, disadvantages, and complexity of scientific research.

Normative analysis examines whether or not a policy supports our fundamental beliefs, but does not offer the ability to make predictions. Positive analysis does.

Prediction is important for practical reasons as well as emotional ones. Humans seem to have a fascination with predicting the future. Religion and mythology represent our desire to know what the future holds; so does science. The story of Minority Report illustrates the importance of prediction in several ways.

Eyesight is woven into the story as a metaphor for the guiding role of empirical analysis. Without his sight, John Anderton makes several mistakes. While his eyesight recovers, he attempts to find food in the refrigerator. There is a deli sandwich, and some mysterious, slimy dinner plate. There is a bottle of milk, and another full of green sludge. Blind, he chooses the wrong one of each pair, and washes them down by drinking from a box marked as a biological hazard. This represents how observing the world around us is essential to making good decisions.

The movie serves to present our desire to know the future as a fundamentally human desire, on par with religious beliefs. The PreCrime building is referred to as a temple, and the PreCogs are treated as holy figures. One character compares religion and science saying, “Science has stolen all our miracles.” The delineation, however, is not as stark as it seems. Science has harnessed the PreCognitives’ abilities, but not explained them. Religious predictions about the end of the world typically rely on the process of empirical observation, e.g., the end times appear near because certain events are similar to those described in a religious text.

Prediction is also important for practical reasons. Both individuals and organizations make long-term investments. Your retirement investment is made using predictions about the future stock and bond market. The Congressional Budget Office makes predictions about the future of America for the purposes of advising Congress about how to write legislation. Industries sometimes lobby for regulation, because regulation makes the future easier to predict, and corporations have to make long-term investments in building factories and power plants up to the regulated standards. Surprises can be economically disastrous, which is why the insurance industry exists. Despite its flaws, prediction is an essential part of life and an instinctual part of being human.

The Scientific Method and the Process of Measurement

The scientific method gives us tremendous leverage in answering questions of political importance. The scientific method is to observe, hypothesize, test, and draw conclusions from the test results. You may already be familiar with the way this process is applied in the natural sciences, for example physics and chemistry. The scientific process looks quite different when political scientists pursue this method. Not only does the process of quantitative research look different, but political science also frequently engages in another approach that is also scientific qualitative research. Each approach has benefits and drawbacks.

Both approaches begin with observation of the world around us, and then developing a hypothesis. Speculating about the world to develop a hypothesis clearly requires some arrogance to believe that you might know something about the way the world works. Yet, it also requires the humble presumption that you might be wrong. A proper hypothesis is falsifiable.³ That means that it is possible to prove your claim incorrect. Here is a falsifiable statement: It is raining in your neighborhood while you read this chapter. By contrast, the claim that unicorns exist is unfalsifiable. It can be proven true if a unicorn is located, but it cannot be proven false. The lack of unicorns does not prove their non-existence. Therefore, the claim that unicorns exist is not a falsifiable claim and therefore not a scientific hypothesis.

The search for unicorns can be approached using science. A fitting hypothesis might be “The newly discovered species uncovered in this archeological dig is the remains of what we now call a unicorn.” This hypothesis can then be tested against a set of characteristics that the scientist asserts are a part of our popular conception of unicorns. Clearly, a hypothesis concerning vampires or zombies would be more difficult to test because the definition of those creatures has many variations and those assertions would be controversial.

Quantitative research focuses on finding a way to measure concepts on a scale where each value can be easily compared to another. A scale has measurements that are evenly spaced, and can be interpreted as having more or less of the concept being measured. For example, political leanings are usually quantified into a seven-point scale using a survey question, where the survey respondent is told to classify themselves assuming that zero means “very liberal” and seven means “very conservative.”

In contrast, when we classify concepts, this is called qualitative research. Qualitative research is often a necessary precursor to quantitative research. Examples of qualitative research are focus groups, interviews, and reading archived materials. These are open-ended analyses, and the results can suggest certain types of quantitative data that would be useful to pursue further. Think of the challenges posed by studying corruption; corrupt officials tend to hide their behavior. Qualitative interviews with current and former elected officials might reveal previously unsuspected methods for corruption, and the use of those methods can then be measured quantitatively. Qualitative analysis opens up new areas of research whereas quantitative analysis provides defined, numerical prediction. When considering a policy proposal, qualitative evidence might support the proposal by providing case studies and personal testimony about its success. However, quantitative evidence could provide a specific percentage chance that the policy will achieve the goal.

Although quantitative measurement has endless potential to provide us with information, it must be developed correctly. The measurements are the building blocks of the research process. Measurement is the process of observing changes in phenomena, for the purpose of predicting what makes them change and how they will change in the future. The first step in the process is to decide which particular aspect of the concept should be measured. Many people find value in knowing the weight of the food they eat in a meal; others are inte...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• Introduction: Science Fiction as a Tool of Political Science
• Part I Theory and Epistemology
• Part II Political Behavior
• Part III Political Institutions
• Part IV Identity
• Part V States
• Part VI Inter-state Relations
• List of Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index