Politics under the Microscope: Observational Methods in Political Research

Abstract. Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the u.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project. Peterson, who has published on a wide variety of topics in biopolitics and political behavior, is Professor of Political Science at Alfred University. Glendon Schubert, Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawaii, is a long-time and prolific student of judicial politics, constitutional law, and biopolitics.Stephen Wasby is Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Albany. His career has been devoted to the study of public law and judicial politics.A SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNT of political behavior occurs through face-to-face interaction. The face-to-face setting is present when small groups meet, when candidates face off in debates, and when lawyers negotiate in the corridors of courthouses (Dorff and Steiner, 1981;Nardulli, Flemming and Eisenstein, 1984). The face-to-face setting cuts across levels of government from municipal councils to international summit meetings. It also cuts across time; the face-to-face setting was no doubt even more common in politics 50,000 years ago than it is today. Although a substantial proportion of face-to-face interactions is not accessible to political researchers, another substantial proportion is. Indeed, there is a rapidly expanding wealth of raw political data stored on videotape, awaiting the attention and curiosity of political scientists.' Advances in video recording and microcomputing technology have made the concept of systematic observation of face-to-face politics more physically practical and financially feasible for political researchers (J. N. Schubert, 1988). In contrast with other scientific disciplines in and out of the social sciences, political science has no tradition of direct, observational field research. A few political scientists, however, have begun to apply the theoretical and methodological approach of human ethology in observational studies of politics (Watts,

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Political Science and Biology: Then, Now, and Next

Somit¹,

Peterson²

2022

Research in Biopolitics

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Politics under the Microscope: Observational Methods in Political Research

Cited by 4 publications

References 9 publications

Biopolitics in 1988: Year of the Newcomer

Biopolitics in 1988: Year of the Newcomer

Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach

Political Science and Biology: Then, Now, and Next

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