who invited the economists? math in poli sci & soc, part 2
Last post for me before the ASA: A few days ago, we got into a discussion about why political science became a much more mathematical discipline after the 1970′s, at least when compared to sociology. A lot of folks offered good answers, and I wanted to discuss a few so I can tease out a general theory of how social science disciplines work. Gabriel offered this thought:
so the question then is why don’t math-focused sociologists go into formal modeling. i think there are two answers, selection and treatment. selection is that since Gary Becker it’s been possible to address sociological issues within econ departments, so students who want to, for instance, apply game theory to the family can do so in econ where they’re going to find much more support for formal modeling. On the treatment side, the study of social networks soaks up the remaining sociologists who like math.
This is a logical story, but it would suggest that *all* social science formal models would migrate to econ and the rest of the social sciences would be the qualitative leftovers. One could easily imagine poli sci being the discipline of classicists, comparativists, and historical institutionalists (i.e., pre-1970′s poli sci). Just like soc now has a core of social constructivists, Durkheim interpreters, and ethnographers. In the same way we have math soc, poli sci would have a rather small subdiscipline named “formal politics.” Yet, reality is different: formal models are now a substantial chunk of the poli sci mainstream, while the most technical work in soc remains in applied statistics.
However, I think you can save Gabriel’s selection/treatment explanation if you notice that the most notorious formal poli sci folks tend to be either econ PhD’s, econ MA holders, or have other extensive formal training. This suggests that much of the formalization of poli sci was done by outsiders. Formalization of politics wasn’t driven by internal developments. It’s driven by invasion and imperialism. Thus, methodologically speaking, poli sci = soc + econ migration.
Notice that poli sci is the *only* major social science discipline to have sustained long term colonization by renegade economists. Soc, anthro, demography, crim, psych, law, education, and history are all low-formal model fields, with a few math pockets. [Ed. - Even demography? Yup - most of the models are really statistical, aside from Markov chain pop models. Go read a demography book!] The applied fields like management and policy have bigger math pockets, but they resemble soc more than econ. If the *normal* state of social science is qual + applied stats, then why are the boundaries of poli sci so poorly guarded? That brings me to Jacob’s comment:
A quirk of path dependence? In poli sci, the separately-federally-funded centers that tended to distract people from being core members of the department were on the qualitative side– area studies centers that emphasized language training. This tended to leave the core departments relatively more dominated by quant folks. In soc, the equivalent was (maybe?) the demography centers, which tended to isolate one of the most quant contingents in soc and left the core departments relatively qualitative…?
This is a key point. The gatekeepers of a discipline – journal editors and hiring chairs – are the ones who “keep the front line” against cross disciplinary invasion. Once you either publish or hire people, then they reproduce inside the new host department. I haven’t been in soc long enough to know if Jacob is on target, but demography accounts for many of the statistically savvy folks who might be open to formal modelers who try to invade soc. But demography is a field with a lot of grants, which means course releases and travel. That means not being around the department as much as the historical or ethnographic types. The result: strong boundary enforcment. In poli sci, the big money was in area studies, which as Jacob points out, draws the qualitative types away. Result: weak boundary enforcement, followed by opportunistic invasion by higher status math heavy groups (economists).
The punchline about math and social science: In general, the bulk of social scientists are fairly low tech, creating an opportunity for a model intensive discipline (econ) while the rest retain a math lite orientation (anthro, soc). At the same time, most social sciences have big batches of quant data that begs for specialization inside the discipline; you get a bifurcation of fields into qual sections and applied stats with fairly small internal demand for models, since most social scientists have modest mathematical training. Therefore, the equilibrium state of social science might be something like: applied stats + qual, with one discipline specializing in models. You can have exogenous forces, like grants and research centers, that weaken boundaries and create opportunities for invasion, producing “twisted” fields, like poli sci, torn between the equilibrium state and the math modelers.
If you believe my theory, the shift of poli sci toward econ in the 70s, 80s and 90s wasn’t the beginning of unstoppable economic imperialism. Instead, it was probably just a relatively contained disturbance created by temporarily weak disciplinary boundaries. As area studies declines as a federally funded area, we are likely to see the scattering of qualitative poli sci types come back to these programs, creating another generational bulwark against economists. Unlike the perestroika that toppled the Soviets in the 80s, poli sci perestroika is probably the sign of an old guard coming back to reclaim its rightful place at the center of a discipline.
Yet another question to ponder: If, as Fabio says, “the *normal* state of social science is qual + applied stats,” why has econ never experienced any pressure to move back to the normal state of social science? Why only economic imperialism into other social sciences, but no soc, institutional, or anthro imperialism into econ? There is certainly something else involved here other than boundary guarding and enforcement.
Ningxi
August 6, 2007 at 4:19 pm
“Why only economic imperialism into other social sciences, but no soc, institutional, or anthro imperialism into econ?”
I’d argue that this has occured, but that the Econ are more Borg-like, seemlessly assimilating every incommensurable finding and theoretical development into the Standard Econ Paradigm as either a “exciting new discovery” or “something we knew all along but never previously found interesting.” In short, the Econ are just better at covering their tracks. Exhibit A: There is “economic sociology,” both no “sociological economics.” Hmmm, why’s that?
peterf
August 6, 2007 at 8:13 pm
peterf and ningxi,
i think you’re overlooking the two biggest trends in econ. first, lab psychology has planted a beachhead in econ with behavioral economics and (Tversky and) Kahneman got a Nobel prize for it. Second, Levitt has run up the jolly roger for model-free statistical work and he got the Clark medal, edits a major journal, and is the idol of many a grad student — and there’s nothing Heckman can do about it. Also note that Kahneman is a psychologist and Levitt has co-authored with at least one sociologist so these are partly boundary work issues, not just internal reforms.
i’d say that constitutes not only “sociological economics” but also “psychological economics” to boot, even if we don’t call them that.
Gabriel
August 6, 2007 at 9:44 pm
Gabriel, not starting a war, but I think you make my point:
“first, lab psychology has planted a beachhead in econ with behavioral economics and (Tversky and) Kahneman got a Nobel prize for it”
= “exciting new discovery”
“Second, Levitt has run up the jolly roger for model-free statistical work and he got the Clark medal…”
= ““something we knew all along but never previously found interesting”
“i’d say that constitutes not only “sociological economics” but also “psychological economics””
You’d say that, but I’ve never heard and Econ say that. Curious isn’t it?
peterf
August 7, 2007 at 10:21 am
peterf,
i’m sorry, i’m not sure i understand your reply. are you saying that while econ may be influenced by psych and soc, that economists themselves don’t use the words “psych” and “soc” in describing these developments and we can accordingly discount their significance as boundary-breaching threats to the hegemony of formal modeling?
Gabriel
August 7, 2007 at 2:24 pm
I do believe that Fabio put forward a good theory by synthesizing the Selection/Treatment explanation with the Path Dependence explanation of Jacob. However, as Ningxi noted, there is something else to it besides boundary enforcement and guarding. But this “something else” seems, to me, to be more about the (weak) philosophical status of formalist/positivistic thought across the social sciences.
As I mentioned in my prior comment on this topic, the interpretative turn in social thought called for a rethinking of research questions and a reevaluation of what were to be judged as acceptable to answers. As far as I am concerned, Levitt editing a major journal, and a bulk of his work being undertaken with an avowed qualitative researcher (S. Venkatesh), Model-Free statistical work being at the fore of the (sociological) discipline, Intepretative Sociology (or Weberian Sociology) gaining influence among economists, major publications on “psychological economics,” all speak to the fracturing of social scientific disciplines conceived along positivistic lines.
Brian Pitt
August 7, 2007 at 2:58 pm
“i’m sorry, i’m not sure i understand your reply. are you saying that while econ may be influenced by psych and soc, that economists themselves don’t use the words “psych” and “soc” in describing these developments and we can accordingly discount their significance as boundary-breaching threats to the hegemony of formal modeling?”
Uh, yea, that’s what I’m saying. If you *move* the boundary, reinterpreting and domesticating developments that are patently incomensurable with the Standard Econ Paradigm, then the boundary isn’t breached. *We* can say what we like about it, but it is clear that they are assimilated without acknowledgement as non-boundary-breaching-threats-to-the-hegemony-of-formal-modeling…and economists move ever-closer to the physicists they model: “No problem with the Standard Econ Paradigm, we just need higher-level math.”
peterf
August 7, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Though I am an ocassional reader of this blog I found this discussion from a post on Mankiw’s blog on a slightly related topic. The “sociology of the economics profession” which often reads more like “why economists are better than sociologists”.
Michael Bishop
August 7, 2007 at 9:48 pm
One fact deserving of explanation:
The minority of sociologists that do formal modeling are relatively more likely to use use agent-based-modeling. One of the causes and/or consequences of this is that they can consider models which may be impossible to solve “analytically” the way the vast majority of economic models are solved.
Michael Bishop
August 7, 2007 at 9:48 pm
peterf,
i see, so it’s not whether a discipline objectively converges with its sister but whether the incumbents acknowledge and resent this (which seems to be the case with many traditional poli sci folks, especially political philosophers). that’s not an entirely unreasonable perspective, though it raises questions about whether the issue is inertia or self-esteem. recall though that the original question was why econ has remained consistently more attached to formal modeling than its sisters — not why econ is so much more self-assured than its sisters.
i don’t want to imply that there is nothing significant in that, for instance, psychologists can demonstrate bounded rationality to economists and economists take it in stride. i just want to argue that we’re both right — subjective boundaries are important but so are objective ones.
Gabriel
August 7, 2007 at 10:31 pm
See how economists attack on model-free statistical approach:
http://gemini.econ.umd.edu/jrust/research/JE_Keynote_7.pdf
To be frank, model-free statistical approach was not popularized by Levitt. It was popular in 90′s already. One of the productive economists on this approach is Alan Krueger, with a few papers and a book on minimum wage.
passerby
August 7, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I’m curious about the metaphor of “invasion.”
It’s not as though a surplus army of unemployed economists stormed the gates of the Rochester poli sci department like so many rioting antiwar students storming university admin buildings; or as though powerful econ departments came by and bullied meek political scientists out of their offices.
First, there were political scientists who noticed the potential interest of formal models.
Then, they started hiring some econ MAs or PhDs, largely people who liked econ methods but were bored with econ substance, and so willing to forego higher econ salaries.
Then, at least for a while, there seemed to be huge intellectual returns, so other departments started copycatting the departments that had started the trend– this created a new market for people with econ training, since it would be a lot of years before the now-more-formal poli sci departments could train enough people with strong enough math skills.
It was a demand phenomenon on our side. And that makes me doubt that perestroika is going to overturn it.
Jacob T. Levy
August 8, 2007 at 3:33 pm
I don’t get a sense there are math geeks on this blog. Let me put out a few hypotheses that match my experience.
There’s ample data from engineering and computer science departments that indicates that an interest in math is set in high school or before. Most math geeks are more interested in the structure of a problem, or in the opportunities that attacking it bring to them, then in the contextual domain of a problem.
In my experience, econ attracts math geeks first, b4 other social sciences, because to them, even econ is a gut compared to engineering and physics. Its prestige is low but they imagine it’s close to $$.
Math geeks in econ are of a more opportunistic fraction of the math geek demographic. Econ also doesn’t stigmatize opportunism as much as some social science disciplines.
It makes sense if one’s already opportunistic that one will hop from econ to another horse when new opportunities arise. The emigres from econ to poli sci or other social science domains aren’t really econ people; they’re math people jumping on a better fed horse, or they’re late comers to math who know they can’t compete with their peers so they’d rather move to an academic math boondock.
The key question then, isn’t one of invasion, it’s one of attraction. And the group to attract is math geeks who are already almost always defined by end of high school. Sociology didn’t have a problem attracting them in the Paul Lazarfeld days, I don’t think. Do Mark Granovetter or Duncan Watts have problems attracting math geeks? I’d doubt it. Harrison White wasn’t a demographer — he was a math geek who knew how to market sociology to math geeks.
Tony
August 9, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Tony: me likey…
rich
August 9, 2007 at 5:50 pm
Should we have more mutual respect than framing discussion with “invasion”, “math geek”, “abnormal”?
passerby
August 9, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Sure, econ have something to do with quantification so to speak of poli science, just looka t econ MA and Ph.D courses it’s like applied math there. Being an econ major applying for a poli. science phd i don’t like the way both fields have been ‘mathematized’ especially econ but what can you do? If you listen long enough you could hear the grumbles in econ Ph.D programs about math geeks beating the self-esteem of fellow students to pulp.
I agree with Tony here. Econ doesn’t stigmatize opportunism.
On the other hand. is “invasion” a right term to use? I doubt it.
@Michael Bishop: A lot of economists have a superiority complex and consider themselves better than sociologists. Kind of an ego thing. Did somebody hear that joke “if you’re a good economist you’ll be reborn in your afterlife as a physicist but if you’re an evil economist you’ll be reborn as a sociologist”.
Mr. Banerjee
August 8, 2008 at 4:38 am
Three quick notes on this interesting discussion:
1. Invasion is certainly an appropriate term. As an economist who thought he was talking to a group of economists once said at a seminar, (a paraphrase, I’m reconstructing this from memory:) “My paper is about x [topic typically associated with sociology]. Why? Well, I was a student of Gary Becker’s. And he said, you guys should just go out and pick problems out there that are littering the landscape, with no one else good working on them.”
2. Note further that there is nothing wrong with this. This is how science works. It is a battle of competing abstractions. We are always trying to subsume other people’s problems into (our) more general theories. Abbott is extremely insightful on this. The strength of economics derives from the power of its twin metaphors– economizing and the economy. Anything that involves economizing or the economy is at risk of being subsumed by economics. Luckily for sociologists, whatever weaknesses we have as a field, we also have a very powerful metaphor– anything that involves the “social” (basically, interaction and organization) is at risk of being subsumed as a sociological topic. The basic problem that Political Science has always faced is that it has a relatively weak metaphor: you can say that the political is an instance of economizing or interaction or even psychology (also a great metaphor, but not good for gobbling up problems that involve aggregates), but it is much harder to do so in reverse, and so political scientists don’t even try. (When is the last time you heard anyone complain about political scientists colonizing anybody?)
3. There is some data that is consistent with both Fabio’s post and what I’m suggesting here in this essay of mine: http://web.mit.edu/ewzucker/www/Disciplinary%20Cross-Citation%20Patterns.pdf. Needs to be updated and was based on what jstor could do a few years ago. The basic upshot is that Fabio is right that economic colonization of poli sci is a bit overdone, especially since it seemed to have crested without ever reaching the level of colonization of poli sci by *sociology* in the prior generation.
ezrazuckerman
August 8, 2008 at 2:42 pm
[...] science so susceptible to economic theory? We’ve discussed this a bit before (part 1 and part 2), but I wanted to add a new hypothesis: economists increased their impact by changing political [...]
how political science lost its soul « orgtheory.net
August 11, 2010 at 12:19 am