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Chaos and Political Science: How Floods and Butterflies Have Proved to Be Relevant to Move Tables Closer

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Chaos Theory in Politics

Part of the book series: Understanding Complex Systems ((UCS))

Abstract

Political Studies have traditionally struggled to acquire the status and reputation of a scientific discipline. Any historical overall review of the upsurge of Political Science show persisting debates on the predictive capacity of the study of politics or even on the possibility to elaborate law-based explanations of political phenomena.

In this vein Behaviouralism and Rational choice, which along the XX century undoubtedly became the two most important schools of research in Political Science, have strongly contributed to the normalization of the discipline, but also have incorporated, as a side-effect, a set of principles related to the Newtonian paradigm into Political Science.

This contribution argues that these assumptions require now further developments, and proposes the analytical framework provided by Chaos Theory as a plausible way to re-conceptualize the ontological and epistemological foundations of Political Science.

In so doing, it is defended that the school of research of Historical Institutionalism proportionates a rich conceptual framework in political analyses that perfectly fits the general assumptions of Chaos Theory. So much so, it is assumed that concepts intrinsically associated to this analytical approach such as path-dependency, increasing returns or critical junctures could arguably find their equivalents in the ideas of sensibility to initial conditions, irreversability of non-linear trajectories and breaking points.

Finally, it is defended that the history of the European Union integration provides unbeatable examples of how social and political processes can perfectly be narrated by means of the conceptual framework of Chaos Theory, and some particular episodes are discussed in a tentative way to open the door to richer and more specific empirical studies.

Prof. Lorenzo Ferrer Figueras in memoriam

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In actuality, this same analogy was used not only in Political Science but also in RI Theory, as long as Realism perspective assumes this same configuration for States acting in Anarchy.

  2. 2.

    For other alternative analyses see Norris [53] and Goodin and Klingemann [23].

  3. 3.

    As predominantly produced in the US, a fact that suggested to Marsh and Savigny [48, p. 161] to talk about an “American dominance of the profession” in a way that “US profession is speaking to the world, but they are not listening to the world”.

  4. 4.

    Lowndes [43], for instance, provides a more precise discussion on the differences and specific features within New Institutionalism. In this vein, she reports not three but rather eight different new institutionalists traditions: (i) normative, (ii) rational, (iii) historical, (iv) international, (v) sociological, (vi) network, (vii) constructivist and (viii) feminist.

  5. 5.

    For want of a nail the shoe was lost/ For want a shoe the horse was lost/ For want of a horse the rider was lost/ For want of rider the battle was lost/ For want of a battle the kingdom was lost/ And all for the want of a horseshoe nail [54].

  6. 6.

    It could be reasonably argued (exempli gratia, [50]) that the observance of irregular periodicity in chaotic systems evolution may arise from a fully linear behaviour where the signal-to-noise ratio is high. As a consequence, as in any sampling theory, the measurement of the difference (δx)0 would only lead to errors which progressively increase and which should then be labelled as noise. And although it will not be developed here, this is a critical elements, since it opens the door to argue that the indeterminibility (and hence lack of predictability of social and political processes) is not a matter of its ontological and epistemological conditions, as it is advocated here, but a question of methodology and available measurement techniques.

  7. 7.

    It is important to note, for methodological and technical purposes which will not be discussed here, that this type of analytical approach, is subject to potential criticism in that they erase possible counterfactual approaches and in so doing, they call into question their own causal question What if?, which, at the end of the day, is at the basis of any scientific research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escola Superior de Comerç Internacional, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain

    Joan Pere Plaza i Font Ph.D. (Associate Professor on European Politics)

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  1. Joan Pere Plaza i Font Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Joan Pere Plaza i Font Ph.D. .

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  1. Institute for Mathematical Research, University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, Malaysia

    Santo Banerjee

  2. Hacettepe University and International Science Association, Ankara, Turkey

    Şefika Şule Erçetin

  3. Yaşar University, Izmir, Turkey

    Ali Tekin

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Font, J.P.P.i. (2014). Chaos and Political Science: How Floods and Butterflies Have Proved to Be Relevant to Move Tables Closer. In: Banerjee, S., Erçetin, Ş., Tekin, A. (eds) Chaos Theory in Politics. Understanding Complex Systems. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8691-1_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8691-1_8

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