Experimental political science

In the 1909 American Political Science Association presidential address, A. Lawrence Lowell claimed: “We are limited by the impossibility of experiment. Politics is an observational, not an experimental science….”[1] He argued that political science, as an emerging discipline, did not need to follow the experimental-led approach of the natural sciences.[2] In the 1900s, observational research was the only way of doing research in political science.

The first experiment in political science is regarded to be Harold Gosnell's 1924 study on voter turnout in Chicago.[3] In this experiment, he randomly assigned districts to receive information on voter registration and encouragement to vote.[4]

In the 1950s, the behaviorist revolution was in full swing, and the development of experimental politics ushered in the first watershed.[5]

The first experiment published in the American Political Science Review was in 1956, 50 years after the publication's inception.[6] The American Political Science Review covered all fields of political science and was found by the Cambridge University Press in 1906. Another mainstream political science journal, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, also began publishing articles on experimental research during this period.

In the 1970s, with the rise of political psychology, the rejection of experimental politics softened.[7]

In the 1980s, computer-assisted telephone interviewing began to appear and was used for the collection of experimental data—the advances in the technology led to the initial rise of experiments.[8]

The period before 2000 was classified as the prelude to the experimental era.[8] This is the long incubation stage of experimental politics. During this period, experimentation was not the main academic activity of political science. Many great discoveries come from the integration of scholars with using multiple methods.

From 2001 to 2009, this period was the first generation when experiments were widely used.[8] Experimentation was becoming part of the political scientist's toolkit during this period due to the development of information technology.

From 2010 till now, we are in the new era of experimental political science 2.0.[8]

Due to the development of the internet, the emergence of commercial internet survey panels and crowdsourcing platforms make data much cheaper and easier to obtain than ever before.[9] Abundant and accessible information is the basis for the wider implementation of experiments in political science.

In 2010,  the Experimental Research section  of the American Political Science Association held its first conference.[10]

In 2012, Bond et al.'s experiment delivered political mobilization messages to 61 million Facebook users. They aimed to explore whether an “I Voted” widget that announced one’s election participation to others increased turnout among Facebook users and their friends.[11] Today's mature social media provide the opportunity to intervene experimentally with a vast capacity population.

In 2014, the first issue of the Journal of Experimental Political Science was published by the Experimental Research section  of the American Political Science Association.

From 2010 to 2019, there were 75 articles using experimental methods published in American Political Science Review. The figure was 76 from 1950 to 2009 in this journal.[12]

Current experts in experimental methodology in political science include Rebecca Morton and Donald Green.

Among the areas that it is used in are:

• Political psychology, including survey methodology, loss aversion, influences on voter turnout, and media influence;
• The effects on outcomes of different voting systems (e.g., storable votes), including the study of tactical voting;
• The political economy of development;[13]
• International relations[14]
• Interactions and voting in legislatures (and other deliberative assemblies), including the effects of different voting methods and control of the agenda.[15]

Experimental research methods in political science have unavoidable ethical questions: Can humans be used for experiments?[42] While experiments in political science usually do not cause physical harm, the elements of deception is commonly existing.[43]

When conducting political science experiments, researchers must intervene in the process of data generation. Political science, as social science, studies human behaviour. Then political science experiments will inevitably have an impact on people.[44] For example, subjects in experiments make choices they would not otherwise face, or subjects are put into experiences or controls that they would not otherwise have.

The experimental process itself is not the only way political science research activities affect human life. Other influences include the influence of the dissemination of experimental results, the influence of political science scholars on their students, and the influence of research results on institutions and professional organizations. Just like the ethics of most other professions, political scientists have ethics.

In 1967, a committee was created by the American Political Science Association (APSA), which aims to explore issues “relevant to the problems of maintaining a high sense of professional standards and responsibilities.”[45] Marver H. Bernstein served as the chairman of this committee. This committee created the first version of the written code of rules of professional conduct.[46]

In 1968, Standing Committee on Professional Ethics was founded. Their job mainly includes the review of formal grievances, mediation and intermediation to other organizations, and issuing formal advisory opinions.[47]

In 1989 and 2008, the code of rules of professional conduct was revised.[48]

After the 1970s, most political scholars began to use experimental methods to focus their research on political behaviour, public opinion, and mass communication. The classic topics include exploring the behavioural preferences and choices of different social groups in group actions, the influence of campaign propaganda on voting results in the voting process, the influence of media propaganda on public attitudes, and the influence of personality on political participation.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, political science research has clearly shown a trend from correlation research to causality research.[49] Political scientists are increasingly dissatisfied with just confirming the strength of the relationship between various factors, and gradually devote themselves to the discussion of causal effects and mechanisms among variables.[50] To measure causal effects accurately is a significant problem and challenge in the social sciences. The means to keep inferences from selection bias in observational studies are minimal. In experimental research, randomly assigning the observation objects to the experimental group and the control group can ensure that there are no observable or unobservable differences between the research objects in theory before the practical operation.[51] The objectivity of the conclusion is built on randomization in this way.

The inherent flaws of various non-experimental study methods have been continuously exposed in the past 20 years. The most notable drawback among all is the limitation of observable data, which hinders researchers' further exploration of causality.[52] In a modern society with highly developed information technology, it is becoming more and more efficient and low-cost to control and collect data by conducting experiments.

The emergence of new communication methods and new media is both a challenge and an opportunity for social science research. These social media and online blogs transmit a large amount of political information and make it more accessible to the public. In the past, the information for social science research was generally insufficient and deficient. Now it is necessary to face the problem of screening the validity of information in the era of information explosion.[53]

Current political scientists are more and more inclined to explore political behaviour's psychological basis and attitude characteristics through experimental means. The distinctive feature of current research is that it focuses on some specific social groups, such as unmarried people, students, ethnic minorities, etc.[54] Investigations about the general population are insufficient.

Different research methods have distinct advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages of one method cannot be compared with the advantages of another method. More and more scholars have begun to use a mixture of different methods to make up for the shortcomings of a single experimental approach.[55] In the field of social sciences, experimental research methods need to be combined with other research methods to obtain knowledge innovation in both theory and methodology and promote the development of the discipline.[56]

• Experimental economics
• Experimental psychology
• Psephology
• Public choice theory
• Social choice theory
• Issue voting

• Kinder, Donald; Palfrey, Thomas, eds. (1993). Experimental Foundations of Political Science. Michigan studies in political analysis. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-08181-3.
• Morton, Rebecca; Williams, Kenneth, eds. (2010). Experimental Political Science and the Study of Causality: From Nature to the Lab. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-13648-8.
• Druckman, James; Green, Donald; Kuklinski, James; et al., eds. (2011). Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-17455-8.

• NYU Center on Experimental Social Science
• The Experiments in Governance and Politics research network
• Experimental Research, an organized section of the American Political Science Association