Introduction to Symposium: Experiments with Politicians: Ethics, Power, and the Boundaries of Political Science
| Author | Florian Foos,Peter John |
| Published date | 01 May 2022 |
| Date | 01 May 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221075919 |
| Subject Matter | Experiments with Politicians: Ethics, Power, and the Boundaries of Political Science |
https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299221075919
Political Studies Review
2022, Vol. 20(2) 169 –174
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/14789299221075919
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Introduction to Symposium:
Experiments with Politicians:
Ethics, Power, and the Boundaries
of Political Science
Peter John1 and Florian Foos2
Abstract
This introduction sets out the context for this symposium, which is the discontent expressed
by UK MPs and the Speaker of the House of Commons in March 2021 about a research project
using e-mails from fictitious constituents to audit the responsiveness of legislators to constituent
emails. The article reviews the research literature on experiments on politicians and summarises
the debate in the academy about the ethical conduct of these randomised controlled trials.
Contributors to the symposium defend and challenge approaches to carrying out these elite
experiments, whether using fictitious identities, confederates, and/or partnerships with politicians,
as well as refine a cost-benefit approach to the design of these studies.
Keywords
politicians, ethics, experiments
Accepted: 4 January 2022
Studying politics is about power. To research power, it is natural that political scientists
should wish to conduct research on the very people who exercise it, the politicians them-
selves. As a result, politicians frequently appear as research subjects in classic studies like
Fenno’s (1978) Home Style and Searing’s (1994) Westminster World. Politicians have also
been participants in survey experiments (Naurin and Öhberg, 2021), and in observational
survey research (Norris and Lovenduski, 1995). While many standard considerations for
survey and interview methods apply to politicians, researchers are also aware that it can
be hard to secure responses from and interviews with these busy people, and that politi-
cians are more likely to dominate interviews rather than answer questions passively
(Goldstein, 2002).
The rediscovery of randomised experiments in political science in the late 1990s trans-
formed the study of mass and elite political behaviour, introducing a new method to study
1School of Politics and Economics, King’s College London, UK
2Department of Government, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Corresponding author:
Peter John, School of Politics and Economics, King’s College London, UK.
Email: peter.john@kcl.ac.uk
1075919PSW0010.1177/14789299221075919Political Studies ReviewJohn and Foos
research-article2022
Symposia and New Ideas
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