John Sides at The Monkey Cage has an interesting post on the different ways that political journalists and political scientists approach their respective crafts, taking both Matt Bai and Samantha Power to task. Journalists are much more free and easy with their categories and less focused on defining precisely the variables and arguments they make. In part, this comes from the journalist's imperative to write something interesting and readable, an imperative most academics don't share (though the best do). But it also brings to mind something I've thought about while working here at the Prospect or watching TV talking heads -- not much of the electoral side of things relies on actual political science knowledge.
Though journalists reference polls and demographic studies, and try to talk about policy based on studies and reports, much of the electoral-analysis job involves trying to figure out what kind of narrative emotional appeals will best convey a policy message to a hypothetical voter (setting aside the mechanics of Getting Out the Vote). Often this includes deploying slippery historical analogy. For this task, my theology degree is about as useful as my supposed-to-get-me-a-job political science credential. But John's post is a worthwhile reminder for anyone writing about this stuff to do a better job -- as John puts it, "Social scientists must be careful about how they conceive of and define the phenomenon of interest. This imperative doesn't hold in casual commentary. And it creates problems. As Andy points out, we really don't know what “danger” and “calm” mean when Powers uses those terms."
--Tim Fernholz
