DR. De Crespigny on Coercion and Freedom—A Rejoinder
| Date | 01 June 1969 |
| Author | Anthony De Crespigny |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1969.tb00638.x |
| Published date | 01 June 1969 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
NOTES AND REVIEW ARTICLES
22
1
behavioural research, the claims to objectivity and to scientism are much more tenuous than is
customarily admitted.
To take up the other points, briefly. Converse does not discuss myth in his essay on belief
systems
:
he is concerned with conscious, overt, and externalized belief systems. After fifty pages
of discussion, including seven tables and four diagrams, Converse concludes that educated,
responsible and informed citizens tend to know more about issues and ideologies than less-
educated, less-involved citizens. This nugget is expressed in behavioural language thus: ‘For the
truly involved citizen, the development of political sophistication means the absorption of con-
textual information that makes clear to him the connexions of the policy area of his initial
interest with policy differences in other areas.’
I
cannot agree that ’multivariate analysis’ deals with the many multiplex relationships of
political society: my remarks on McClosky‘s ambitious exploration show why
I
cannot accept
that view. As for the article by
H.
Blalock to which
I
am referred-‘Causal Inferences, Closed
Populations, and Methods of Association’-I find that Blalock makes so many questionable
assumptions (e.g. that factors such as immigration and emigration are so marginal that they
may be ignored for purposes
of
treating populations as ‘closed‘), that
I
leave it to readers of this
journal to see how many untested assumptions Blalock imports for the construction of his
‘causal‘ modeL1
I
do not deny-indeed
I
assert in my article-that within certain fields of enquiry, the analysis
of
evoked responses serves useful purposes. Factual data relating to age, occupation,
immediate
voting intentions, even short-term goals (but not ‘life goals’, which many behaviouralists
blithely compute) are cases in point. But the more the researcher moves out of these restricted
zones, the greater his assumptions-or presumptions-about individuals and groups must be.
There are areas of enquiry where, given a certain level of clinical training, experts may explore
hypotheses which concern such intangibles as human volition and personality traits. But clinical
evidence concerning inter-personal behaviour is not necessarily reducible to political behaviour,
‘deviant’
or
otherwise.2 It is, after all, impossible to replicate any specific piece of research into
political behaviour: identical samples, constant conditions, and closed systems are among the
iirst prerequisites for any attempt. When these conditions are achieved, behaviouralism in
politics
will
begin to resemble scientific enquiry.
DR. DE CRESPIGNY ON COERCION AND
FREEDOM-A REJOINDER
ANTHONY
DE
CRESPIGNY
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland
I
WAS
somewhat surprised, though not displeased, to learn that an article of mine published
more than four years ago in
Political Studies3
was to be attacked by Mr. Price in the issue of last
October4-surprised because my piece seemed scarcely to merit
so
much critical attention and
I
I
am just a little sad that my colleagues should regard Blalock’s little piece as ‘an advance on
the
Phaedo’.
If
you believe that, as the saying goes, you will believe anything.
2
Cf. Erik Erikson on the psychology of ideologies in his
Identiry, Youth and Crisis
(London,
1968).
3 Anthony de Crespigny, ‘The Nature and Methods of Non-Violent Coercion’,
Political
Studies,
Vol.
XII,
No.
2
(June
1964),
pp.
256-65.
4
Russell Price, ‘Dr. de Crespigny on Coercion and Freedom’,
Political Studies,
Vol. XVI,
No.
3
(October
1968),
pp.
99-102.
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