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Stuck in a Political Science gen-ed course? Not sure about how to beat it like a red-headed stepchild? 500 words lie between you and your hegemonic ambitions.

When you are analyzing political science work, there are a few key flaws you should be quick to jump on. Teachers love these in particular.

1. Poor case selection. When a political scientist is trying to prove his claim, he needs to use examples (cases) that differentiate his claim from opposed arguments. For example, let’s say that my argument is that “Bad weather doesn’t affect Tom Brady’s performance.” The counterargument is that “snow cripples Tom Brady.” It would be bad case selection if I tried to use this as evidence: according to the NFL, Tom Brady’s win percentage is identical at open-air stadiums and enclosed domes. That doesn’t get directly at the issue of whether snow specifically screws Tom Brady– maybe it’s rain instead? A much better case-selection would be that, according to the NFL, Tom Brady has an equal winning percentage whether there is snow or not. That’s a valid argument.

   1. 1. How you might phrase this: “The author’s argument is flawed because he did not use cases that differentiated his theory’s predictions from the opposing theory.”

2. Undisprovable thesis. Political scientists make arguments. But an argument that can’t be disproven is worthless. For example, in the Middle Ages someone might have argued that “prayer affects natural disasters.” If a plague hits, we weren’t praying hard enough (which angered God). If a plague doesn’t hit, it’s because we were praying. This thesis is flawed because it can’t be disproven. Whether there is or is not a natural disaster, prayer is (supposedly) the cause. By contrast, when I say that “bad weather doesn’t affect Tom Brady’s performance,” it is possible to disprove that claim (his pass-completion numbers are awful in the snow!)

3. Tautology. This is when someone makes a claim that is mixed in with a crucial definition. For example, my claim is that “over 90% of liberals oppose President Bush.” You should ask me how I defined liberals. If it turns out that my definition of a liberal is someone that opposes President Bush, well of course more than 90% of liberals oppose President Bush! Think of this way: you could rephrase my claim as “over 90% of Bush opponents oppose President Bush.” Hmm. My claim doesn’t actually shed a lot of light.

4. Ex post ergo hoc (the incorrect assumption that event A caused B just because A happened before B). I always pull the keys out of my ignition before getting out of my car. You might argue– wrongly– that the removal of the keys from your ignition causes me to get out of the car. That’s wrong! In fact, both of the events (the removal of the keys and me stepping outside) are caused by a third event, my arrival at my destination.

5. Poor case application. You may read works of political science that reach jaw-droppingly strange conclusions from the cases they’ve picked. “As we saw in World War II, democratic states are especially likely to engage in hostile activity and start wars.” Uhh… which World War II are you thinking of?

6. Begging the question. A poli-scientist begs the question when his argument requires some assumption that he doesn’t justify. “Pew Polls says that Republicans make up 55%* of the US population. Therefore, a majority of the US population supports the war in Iraq.” That assumes that the vast majority of Republicans support the war. You could support that claim with evidence, but you can’t just leave it as an undefended assumption.

   1. “The author incorrectly assumed that Republicans overwhelmingly supported the war. Rasmussen Polls indicates that only about half do*.”

*I just made that up to demonstrate argumentation.

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