TRENDS: Toward a Separate Ethics of Political Field Experiments

Abstract

In this article, I develop a critical view of the development and state of research ethics in political science. The central problem is that political scientists have inappropriately followed the lead of clinical biomedical research ethics in thinking about their own designs. Specifically I argue that the focus on institutional and group decision-making contexts distinctive to political research presents normative problems not well-addressed by clinical biomedical approaches. First, I make the case that research ethics as it has been conceived won’t capture all that might be wrong in political research designs because some of the potential harms/wrongs will be to political norms and institutions and thus will violate political (although not individual ethical) rights/values/and so on. Second, I rebut the challenge that principles of justice and equipoise standard to biomedical research ethics might be suitable for political research. And third, I argue that political theorists and philosophers must involve themselves in empirical political science research ethics if we are to effectively communicate the stakes of these research designs to practitioners, consumers, funders, and editors who remain steeped in the norms of biomedical research ethics.