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In his article The Weight of Geopolitics, Robert Kagan seeks to answer the question of why democracy is in retreat worldwide.[1] The main claim he makes to answer this question is that political ideas within nations follow the relative success of countries holding those ideas within the geopolitical sphere.[2] In his telling, this is both because of hard power considerations, like the U.S. imposing democracy on Japan in the aftermath of World War II, and soft power aspects, like the idea that the success or failure of other democratic regimes in geopolitics impacts people’s perceptions of democracy as “people tend to follow winners.”[3] However, it is important to note Kagan never uses the specific phraseology of soft and hard power. The methodology used is that of small-n analysis. Kagan analyzes a number of case studies various periods in history that democracy either advanced or retreated worldwide and their connection to shifting geopolitics.[4] The data he uses in analyzing these case studies is sourced from a number of historical works and scholarly articles on waves of democratization and periods of democratic retreat throughout history. The conclusion he reaches at the end of his analysis is that if the United States or other liberal democracies don’t reassert themselves on the world stage, both in promoting democracy and in making democracy appealing through their example, past waves of democracy will be reversed. [5]

[1] Robert Kagan, “The Weight of Geopolitics,” Journal of Democracy 26, no. 1 (January 7, 2015): 21–31.

[2] Ibid. 21.

[3] Ibid. 23.

[4] Ibid. 22-26.

[5] Ibid. 29.

I understand the concept of ontology to be how a researcher views the world they are studying. Basically, what a researcher believes that we can learn about the world through research. Meanwhile, methodology is the set of assumptions about the world and the nature of knowledge that inform what tools we use to get at whatever knowledge we believe to be out there.

When we were initially discussing the different ontological outlooks in class, I instinctively found myself drawn to the neo-positivist/realist/transcendent knowledge side of the debate. After subsequent readings and discussions, I am even more convinced that it is possible to ascertain objective knowledge about the social world. That is not to say that researchers are free from bias but I do think those biases can be accounted for and dealt with in a way that moves us closer to objective knowledge.

Interpretivists argue that an objective social world cannot be studied since researchers, being part of the social world, cannot possibly separate their values and biases from what they are studying. For example, in his article The Subjectivity of the “Democratic” Peace, Ido Oren argues that the democratic peace theory is less about democracy, or any other trait of government, and more about political scientists redefining the values they judge governments so as to emphasize what makes us similar to our allies and different from our adversaries.[1] However, I find this argument unconvincing as it is possible to test for many variables in assessing the strength of a hypothesis. That can include variables designed to assess various understandings of “our kind” in order to determine whether values stressed at different times in history have different impacts on the propensity of nations to go to war with each other. In that way, one can control for the values the researcher may bring into a study.

I think it is possible to make valid knowledge claims about all the things listed in the prompt to this question. The one thing a researcher has to be concerned about is mixing normative value claims with knowledge claims, something that could influence the objectivity of the research produced by that researcher. This is something I will have to be careful with regards to my own research because, from a normative perspective, I value democracy and view it as a good thing. However, if I allow that to influence the process by which I make knowledge claims it will undermine the validity of my research.

[1] Ido Orren. “The Subjectivity of the ‘Democratic’ Peace.” International Security Vol. 20, No. 2 (Fall 1995): 147-188.  (Accessed September 18, 2017).