Refuting political theories? An unapologetic empiricist view

The recent methodological turn in political theory has brought about a lively debate regarding the connections or lack thereof between political theory and political science. Several authors, such as Dowding, Floyd, Blau, Perez and Bosworth, have suggested various arguments promoting close connections between political theory and political science, pointing to major advantages that such a connection would bring about, such as precision, clarity, the choice of topics and case studies, avoiding mistakes in prescriptive elements of political theory and more. The current paper attempts to contribute to this empirical approach, yet focusing on a particular aspect of the connections between political theory and political science. This particular aspect is the attempt made by various political theorists (at times collaborating with political scientists), to verify, falsify, or make more precise, statements or assumptions included in major political theories. Such assumptions or statements at times contain a descriptive element regarding some political behavior, rule or institution. These statements, and their respective operationalization will be the focus of the current article. Examining several studies that have attempted to verify, falsify or to make more precise such statements included in major political theories, such as by George Klosko, Simon Chambres, Jeff Spinner Halev, Alice Baderin, Nahshon Perez, and others demonstrate the utility of such studies, in preventing descriptive mistakes, in improving prescriptive aspects of political theories, in clarifying political theories, and generally by clarifying and making more precise political theories. One further potential of the empirical testing of parts of political theories is the indication of weaknesses or even the refutation of such theories, by demonstrating that major empirical assumptions of such theories are vague, partial or simply incorrect. This potential is an underdeveloped aspect of the empirical and methodological turn in political theory, and is different from the more familiar attempt to refute political theories by pointing to the undesirable outcomes of political systems that adopt given political theories in part or in whole. While the refutation of political theories is an unfamiliar attribute of the discipline, it shall be argued here that this aspect should receive much more attention than is customary in political theory.