Methodology and Political Science: The Discipline Needs Three Fundamentally Different Methodological Traditions [journal article] / by Johann Lauer, in Springer Nature: Social Sciences, 1:43 (2021)."Political science, like all other social sciences, can draw on three fundamentally different methodological traditions. The first is a descriptive tradition to generate descriptive knowledge to describe political phenomena and interpret political symbols (text, image, audio, and video). The second is an explanatory-prognostic tradition to generate explanatory and prognostic knowledge to explain and predict political events. The third is a genuine practical (not applied!) tradition to generate and scientifically legitimate practical knowledge for political standardization and regulation. Political science greatly increases its relevance to practical politics and to society if all methodological traditions within the discipline are used complementarily and applied in their updated forms"--From the article's abstract.
