Exercise 3: Why Political Theory Is Normative and Political Science Is Empirical — Possible Solution
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The chapter's own real, verified distinction is about what kind of
question each discipline is actually trying to answer. Political
theory asks how governance ought to work - a genuinely normative
question, concerned with what's desirable, just, or right, regardless
of whether any real system currently works that way. Political science
instead asks how governance actually, in practice, works - a genuinely
empirical question, concerned with describing and explaining real,
observed behavior and institutions as they exist right now.

Applied to voting systems specifically: a political theory question
would be something like "which voting system is the most fair or
representative way to translate citizens' preferences into
government?" - a normative question about what a voting system
should achieve, that could be debated on principle even for a country
with no elections at all. A political science question would instead
be something like "what real, measured effect did switching from
first-past-the-post to proportional representation actually have on
voter turnout in a specific country?" - an empirical question,
answerable only by examining real, observed data from an actual
system that genuinely exists.

The key, real difference is that the theory question is ultimately
answered by argument and reasoning about values, while the science
question is ultimately answered by evidence and observation of
existing reality - one is asking what ought to be true, the other is
asking what actually is true.

ANSWER: Political theory is normative because it asks how governance
ought to work, evaluated through argument about values and fairness;
political science is empirical because it asks how governance actually
does work, evaluated through observed, real data. On voting systems,
a theory question asks which system is the most fair way to represent
citizens (a normative question, answerable by reasoning alone), while
a science question asks what a specific real system's own measured
effect on turnout actually was (an empirical question, answerable only
by real data).

WHY THIS WORKS AS AN ANSWER
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This explains the real ought-vs-is distinction underlying the
normative/empirical split, then applies it concretely to the same
topic from both angles, showing the genuine difference in what kind of
answer each discipline is actually looking for.