Bai on political science

Reporter Matt Bai wrote a review (reg. req.) of a book called "The Myth of Digital Democracy", by Matthew Hindman. Bai writes that thesis of the book is that, "[a]ccording to Hindman, American politics and media, far from being democratized in any way, are still controlled by a relative handful of activists and gatekeepers." Now, I haven't read this book so I can't speak how accurately Bai describes the main topic within the book. I would like to take a second to note some statements about differences between political journalists and political scientists.

Bai says:

Academics who study politics often consider those of us who write about the field to be superficial, simple-minded and–the greatest indictment of all– unscientific. We interview three people in an Iowa diner and act as if we have penetrated the very soul of America. (Such allegations are, sadly, true enough.) Hindman’s book is permeated by just this kind of mild contempt for political journalists, who, in his view, have mindlessly extolled the democratizing virtues of the Internet while not possessing the basic intellectual skills necessary to quantify their assertions.

On the other hand:

[P]olitical writers don’t think so much of political scientists, either, mostly because anyone who has ever actually worked in or covered politics can tell you that, whatever else it may be, a science isn’t one of them. Politics is, after all, the business of humans attempting to triumph over their own disorder, insecurity, competitiveness, arrogance, and infidelity; make all the equations you want, but a lot of politics is simply tactile and visual, rather than empirical. My dinnertime conversation with three Iowans may not add up to a reliable portrait of the national consensus, but it’s often more illuminating than the dissertations of academics whose idea of seeing America is a trip to the local Bed, Bath & Beyond.

I emphasized the two sections about because I think that they point out a key issue. A democracy is not a sporting event. We need to treat it as an important sociological reality as opposed to a narrative that reads well. Furthermore, even in sports, the turn towards quantitative analysis leads to an increase in successful outcomes. I am not sure what the benefits are of denying the value of statistics in political endeavors. I am sure that David Plouffe could enlighten you on the benefits of accepting the value of statistics, though.

Look, math is hard. Statistical analysis is hard. Doing these things well can result in complicated, nuanced understandings that may be difficult to adequately describe in a newspaper. Demonizing the math, though, only leads Americans down a roads in which we understand the dynamics less and we rely on the media elite more. If the internet democratized anything, it was the political media landscape. Today, we don't have to rely on editors dictating what we need to know on the basis of what they think will sell more newspapers. Any additions to that small group of, potentially conflicted, information providers, be they minimal additions or not, is a good thing.