Twitter / ianbremmer: Can political science predict
Can political science predict the future?
My latest on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140416123139-325365745-can-you-predict-the-future-in-politics?trk=prof-post
Can you predict the future in politics? | LinkedIn
Given that I’m a political scientist and I assess risk for a living, I’m often asked how I make predictions about the future. How much of it is guesswork? How much of it is luck?
When it comes to “predicting” political risk, the short answer is you don't.
But you can still sensibly discuss what you think will happen and the relative likelihood of one outcome occurring as opposed to another. So how do we “predict” the future? It’s more about identifying what you cannot know, what cannot happen and what patterns could repeat themselves―and stripping political rhetoric out of the equation.
1) Acknowledge the limits of what you can anticipate.
Predicting how a country would respond to crisis is much more manageable than predicting the crisis itself.
2) Strip out the political rhetoric.
Political leaders constantly make statements and feign actions that are meant to have an impact on their constituents―not to reflect reality. Media outlets often have an incentive to echo the most extreme comments and sensationalize events to capture and keep their target audience’s attention.
3) Determine when politics makes the ‘impossible’ possible.
There are times when political dynamics make a seemingly impossible outcome fall within the realm of possibility.
Take Russia defaulting on its debt in August 1998, an event that sent shockwaves through global markets. When assessing the possibility earlier that year from an economic perspective, there was no logical rationale for it happening. Looking at it from a political angle, however, you couldn’t rule it out: the key stakeholders and decision-makers had incentives and predilections that could make a default tolerable given a certain set of circumstances. You wouldn’t go so far as to predict default, but to assess what was next for Russia, you’d be wise to include it in the range of very possible outcomes.
4) Learn from existing examples.
As William Gibson said, “the future is already here, it's just not evenly distributed.” If you want to predict what comes next, look for where we’re already seeing activity that could become systemic: the "weak signals" that become strong signals.
Where can we anticipate similar results? Where are they most likely to diverge? By assessing the demographic challenges and opportunities, social instabilities, and political consolidations, we can begin to paint a probabilistic picture of potential outcomes. The merits of comparative analysis really shine here.
The next time you reach for your crystal ball to determine where Ukraine is headed or where disaster will strike next, remember: political prediction and soothsaying are not the same thing.
ヴェーバーは、学問こそが人々を呪術の園（＝magic garden：未開人のように呪術や祈りで問題を解決しようとすること）から解き放ち、すべての事柄は原則上技術と予測によって意のままになると信じていた。
技術（の学問）の急激な発達に社会制御システム（の学問）が追いつかず２度の世界大戦の破壊を生み出すことにもなった。
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/d1021/20140407#1396867569
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/d1021/20131128#1385636498
