Political Science In Karl Popper's Clouds Clocks, And The Study Of Politics

Political science is a study attempting to understand human behavior as it relates to politics. As such, political science, like any science, requires hypotheses, testable objectives to try and narrow down the large scope that is the global politic scene. Nonetheless, as human behavior forms the basis of political science, it can be inherently difficult to quantify. This begs the question as to whether or not political science can be considered a hard, quantifiable science—one based on empirical evidence. In “Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics,” Gabriel Almond and Stephen Genco utilize Karl Popper’s metaphor of “clouds” and “clocks” in an attempt to place comparative politics on the spectrum of science. To do so, there must first be a better understanding of the …show more content…
She uses this data to understand the puzzles regarding the transitions from communist regimes in mainly Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. Again, her conclusions in this case are not as important as to whether they further predictability in comparative politics. Nalepa’s focus concerns how and why there were peaceful transitions away from communism in a process called lustration: the revealing of public figures’ communist pasts (Nalepa 4). Through both scientific and theoretical models, Nalepa concludes that careful calculations brought on by fear of punishment and retribution for past actions inspired these transitions these (Nalepa 206). Nalepa proposes that her empirical models have broader applications, even beyond regime transitions (Nalepa 215). Despite a definite conclusion, Nalepa claimed her model was also applicable in other aspects of comparative politics. Like Albertus, her conclusions seem “clock-like” in nature, but are, rather, more “cloud-like” than