Masha Gessen’s “The Dying Russians” is an example of the potential for truth and explanation that inheres in the encounter between “good journalism” and social science. It is also an fine illustration of how the pursuit of a puzzle—in this case “Why are Russians dying at such high rates, and so young, since 1991?”—can give way to a new and unexpected (if not more harrowing) question, “Why have Russians been dying at such high rates for decades?” The conclusion that the piece reaches is almost lyrical, and possibly not even science. Russians are, it would seem, dying of broken hearts.

Assess the piece from the perspective of this week’s discussion of the nature of science and methodology. How are cultural, institutional, or historical instruments of explanation brought to bear on the analysis, and are they effectively used? Is there a “truth” that lies beyond the grasp of social science, or even medical science. If so should we stop striving for the unreachable? You might want to keep in the back of your mind Ian Shapiro’s entreaty that we adhere to “problem-oriented research” rather than “method-driven” political science. (“…if one’s only tool is a hammer, everything in sight starts to look like a nail.”

Photo:  “Dynamo” factory workers listening about the death of Joseph Stalin, 1953 by Dmitry Baltermants