{"id":177,"date":"2018-02-22T07:11:42","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T12:11:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/?p=177"},"modified":"2018-02-22T07:11:42","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T12:11:42","slug":"the-dying-russians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/third-blog-the-science-of-political-science\/the-dying-russians\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dying Russians"},"content":{"rendered":"

Masha Gessen\u2019s \u201cThe Dying Russians<\/a>\u201d is an example of the potential for truth and explanation that inheres in the encounter between \u201cgood journalism\u201d and social science. It is also an fine illustration of how the pursuit of a puzzle\u2014in this case \u201cWhy are Russians dying at such high rates, and so young, since 1991?\u201d\u2014can give way to a new and unexpected (if not more harrowing) question, \u201cWhy have Russians been dying at such high rates for decades?\u201d The conclusion that the piece reaches is almost lyrical, and possibly not even science. Russians are, it would seem, dying of broken hearts.<\/p>\n

Assess the piece from the perspective of this week\u2019s 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 \u201ctruth\u201d 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\u2019s entreaty that we adhere to \u201cproblem-oriented research\u201d rather than \u201cmethod-driven\u201d political science. (\u201c…if one\u2019s only tool is a hammer, everything in sight starts to look like a nail.”<\/p>\n

\"\"Photo: \u00a0\u201cDynamo\u201d factory workers listening about the death of Joseph Stalin, 1953 by Dmitry Baltermants<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Masha Gessen\u2019s \u201cThe Dying Russians\u201d is an example of the potential for truth and explanation that inheres in the encounter between \u201cgood journalism\u201d and social science. It is also an fine illustration of how the pursuit of a puzzle\u2014in this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1690,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-third-blog-the-science-of-political-science"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1690"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/18s-psci204\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}