Essentially Contested Subjects: Some Ontological and Epistemological Considerations When Studying Homosexuals and Terrorists

Abstract

Research in political science often entails investigating the attitudes and behaviors of actors and groups. Usually it is clear who the subjects of our study are, especially when dealing with governmental actors (for example, a person either is a member of Congress or they are not). However, when our analysis shifts to society, this often becomes more problematic as we use fixed labels (black, criminal, lesbian, terrorist, and so on) to study groups who are much more amorphous because of their socially constructed nature, groups whom I call “essentially contested subjects.” The power of assigning and using these labels can have important implications on who is included within a study and what knowledge we know/create about them. This article will discuss the ontological and epistemological implications of the methods we use to study essentially contested subjects through an examination of published work on two such groups: homosexuals and terrorists.

Notes

¹ W.B. Gallie, “Essentially Contested Concepts,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56 (March 1956), pp. 167–98; see also W.B. Gallie, “Art as an Essentially Contested Concept,” The Philosophical Quarterly 6:23 (1956), pp. 97–114; and W.B. Gallie, Philosophy and the Historical Understanding, 2nd ed. (New York: Schocken Books, 1968).

² Giovanni Sartori, “Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics,” American Political Science Review 64:4 (1970), pp. 1033–1053.

³ David Collier, Fernando Daniel Hidalgo, and Andra Olivia Maciuceanu, “Essentially Contested Concepts: Debates and Applications,” Journal of Political Ideologies 11:3 (2006), pp. 211–246.

⁴ Judith Grant, “Forget the APSR: The Politics of Political Science,” New Political Science 33:1 (2011), pp. 87–91.

⁵ Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, 1st ed. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

⁶ Max Weber, The Methodology of the Social Sciences, 1st ed. (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1949).

⁷ Anshuman Prasad and Pushkala Prasad, “The Coming of Age of Interpretive Organizational Research,” Organizational Research Methods 5:1 (2002), pp. 4–11.

⁸ Ian Hacking, The Social Construction of What? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999).

⁹ Ibid., 29.

¹⁰ Regardless of whether one agrees that these are the most prestigious general journals in our field, most departments rank them highest in promotion and tenure decisions according to several surveys. For a larger discussion and thorough literature review, see John M. Rothgeb and Betsy Burger, “Tenure Standards in Political Science Departments: Results from a Survey of Department Chairs,” PS: Political Science & Politics 42:3 (2009), pp. 513–519.

¹¹ Harry Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Political Science,” in Fred Greenstein and Nelson Polsby (eds), Handbook of Political Science, Vol. 7: Strategies of Inquiry (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975), pp. 79–138.

¹² Jeffrey R. Lax and Justin H. Phillips, “Gay Rights in the States: Public Opinion and Policy Responsiveness,” American Political Science Review 103:3 (2009), pp. 376–386.

¹³ Robert Andersen and Tina Fetner, “Economic Inequality and Intolerance: Attitudes toward Homosexuality in 35 Democracies,” American Journal of Political Science 52:4 (2008), pp. 943–958.

¹⁴ Paul R. Brewer, “The Shifting Foundations of Public Opinion about Gay Rights,” Journal of Politics 65:4 (2003), pp. 1208–1220; see also Arthur Lupia, Yanna Krupnikov, Adam Seth Levine, Spencer Piston, and Alexander Von Hagen-Jamar, “Why State Constitutions Differ in their Treatment of Same-Sex Marriage,” Journal of Politics 72:4 (2010), pp. 1222–1235; and Sean Nicholson-Crotty, “Reassessing Madison's Diversity Hypothesis: The Case of Same-Sex Marriage,” Journal of Politics 68:4 (2006), pp. 922–930.

¹⁵ Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality (New York: Dutton, 1995).

¹⁶ Jane Ward, “Straight Dude Seeks Same: Mapping the Relationship between Sexuality Identities, Practices, Cultures,” in Mindy Stombler, Dawn M. Baunach, Elisabeth O. Burgess, Denise Donnelly and Wendy Simonds (eds), Sex Matters: The Sexuality and Society Reader (Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 2006), pp. 31–37; see also David M. Halperin, How to Be Gay (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2012).

¹⁷ Gregory J. Kasza, “Methodological Bias in the American Journal of Political Science,” in Kristen R. Monroe (ed.), Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005); see also David Pion-Berlin and Dan Cleary, “Methodological Bias in the APSR,” in Kristen R. Monroe (ed.), Perestroika! The Raucous Rebellion in Political Science (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).

¹⁸ Charles Anthony Smith, “Gay, Straight, or Questioning? Sexuality and Political Science,” PS: Political Science & Politics 44:1 (2011), pp. 35–38.

¹⁹ Robert A. Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” American Political Science Review 97:3 (2003), pp. 343–361; see also Robert Powell, “Defending against Terrorist Attacks with Limited Resources,” American Political Science Review 101:3 (2007), pp. 527–541; Claude Berrebi and Esteban F. Klor, “Are Voters Sensitive to Terrorism? Direct Evidence from the Israeli Electorate,” American Political Science Review 102:3 (2008), pp. 279–301; and Tiberiu Dragu, “Is There a Trade-off between Security and Liberty? Executive Bias, Privacy Protections, and Terrorism Prevention,” American Political Science Review 105:1 (2011), pp. 64–78. Two more articles did appear in APSR, but I chose not to include them because they were just short rejoinders to Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.”

²⁰ Darren W. Davis and Brian D. Silver, “Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of Terrorist Attacks on America,” American Journal of Political Science 48:1 (2004), pp. 28–46; see also Ethan Bueno de Mesquita, “The Quality of Terror,” American Journal of Political Science 49:3 (2005), pp. 515–530; Leonie Huddy, Stanley Feldman, Charles Taber, and Gallya Lahav, “Threat, Anxiety, and Support of Antiterrorism Policies,” American Journal of Political Science 49:3 (2005), pp. 593–608; Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Eric S. Dickson, “The Propaganda of the Deed: Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Mobilization,” American Journal of Political Science 51:2 (2007), pp. 364–381; and Marc Hetherington and Elizabeth Suhay, “Authoritarianism, Threat, and American's Support for the War on Terror,” American Journal of Political Science 55:3 (2011), pp. 546–560.

²¹ Cindy D. Kam and Donald R. Kinder, “Terror and Ethnocentrism: Foundations of American Support for the War on Terrorism,” Journal of Politics 69:2 (2006), pp. 320–338; see also James A. Piazza, “A Supply-Side View of Suicide Terrorism: A Cross-National Study,” Journal of Politics 70:1 (2008), pp. 28–39; Erica Chenoweth, “Democratic Competition and Terrorist Activity,” Journal of Politics 72:1 (2010), pp. 16–30; Efraim Benmelech, Claude Berrebi, and Esteban F. Klor, “Economic Conditions and the Quality of Suicide Terrorism,” Journal of Politics 74:1 (2012), pp. 113–128; and Michael G. Findley, James A. Piazza, and James K. Young, “Games Rivals Play: Terrorism in International Rivalries,” Journal of Politics 74:1 (2012), pp. 235–248.

²² For example, see Jenny Teichman, “How to Define Terrorism,” Philosophy 64:250 (1989), pp. 505–517; see also Kshitij Prabha, “Defining Terrorism,” Strategic Analysis 24:1 (2000), pp. 125–135; C.A.J. Coady, “Terrorism and Innocence,” Journal of Ethics 8:1 (2004), pp. 37–58; and Joshua Sinai, “How to Define Terrorism,” Perspesctives on Terrorism 2:4 (2008), pp. 9–11.

²³ Teichman, “How to Define Terrorism,” p. 508.

²⁴ Pape, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” p. 345.

²⁵ Ibid., 345.