Hay, C. orcid.org/0000-0001-6327-6547 and Benoît, C. (2021) Un échec des modèles explicatifs de la science politique ? Revue française de science politique, 71 (4). pp. 555-574. ISSN 0035-2950
Abstract
In 2016, the Leave vote won the referendum on the membership of the United Kingdom in the European Union, a result that few observers had anticipated. Should we consider the fact that most political scientists were unable to predict this outcome as reflecting the failure of their theoretical models? And what are the implications for the state of political science as a discipline if it is judged primarily according to its ability to make predictive claims? Comparing the current condition of political science to that of the discipline of economics following the 2007 financial crisis, this article contends that it is a theory’s ability to retrospectively render a social event or circumstance intelligible – and not to predict it – that should be evaluated as its primary criterion for validity. Re-examining the causes of the Brexit vote, we show that the 2016 vote can be explained by several existing tenets of political science. From this perspective, we discuss what political scientists might – and might not – say about the future, if we admit that prediction does not play the same role in social science as it does in the natural sciences.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 Presses de Sciences Po. This is an author-produced version of a paper subsequently published in Revue française de science politique. Uploaded with permission from the copyright holder. |
Keywords: | United Kingdom; Brexit; Neoliberalism: Predictability; Contingency |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Research Institutes Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Feb 2023 10:08 |
Last Modified: | 17 Feb 2023 10:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | CAIRN |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.3917/rfsp.714.0555 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:196165 |