Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science pdf

Altmetric counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in. Method of structured, focused comparison singlecase studies 3. Fearon, counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science comparative and single casestudies submit your assignment and get professional help from our qualified experts. Basic concepts and theories of international relations. Contrasts, counterfactuals,and causes eric grynaviski, 20. The tradeoff between hypothesis generating and hypothesis testing helps us to reconcile the enthusiasm of case study researchers and the skepticism of case study critics. Article information, pdf download for contrasts, counterfactuals,and. Before him, scientists were using controlled experiments where they tried to minimize the di. Political science 817 empirical methods of political inquiry. Normative political theory is concerned with questions about such concepts as justice, equality, and rights. Theory development and hypothesis generation thomas j. James fearon, counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science, world politics 43.

Counterfactuals university of california, berkeley. The move to the right of white workingclass men, 19682016. Theories and methods of political analysis university of waterloo. They are both right, for the looseness of case study research is a boon to new conceptualizations just as it is a bane to falsification. Research methods in social science 3 credit hours length of course. Fearon skip to main content accessibility help we use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. The focus is on theories of international relations.

Department of political science political science 600 theories and. The purpose of comparison the comparison of countries centers on four main objectives. The dangers of extreme counterfactuals gary king department of government and institute for quantitative social science, harvard university, 1737 cambridge street, cambridge ma 028 email. Jul 12, 2017 counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science published in. Causal inference based on counterfactuals bmc medical. Fearon 1991 counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science counterfactuals play a necessary and fundamental, if often implicit and underdeveloped, role in the efforts of political scientists to assess their hypotheses about the causes of the phenomena they study 169. The first step toward accomplishing this goal is to develop a basic understanding of political science and the kind of work political scientists do. The study of critical junctures theory, narrative, and. This paper provides an overview on the counterfactual and related approaches. Translating quantitative methods for qualitative researchers. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science, world politics 432. Researchers using counterfactual arguments to support causal hypotheses should make these counterfactuals as explicit and defensible as they can. Fearon academic employment education political science.

The definition of plagiarism in the graduate center policy on academic honesty is as follows. Barbara geddes, how the cases you choose affect the answers you get. Yale university international relations reading list 2005. The course serves as a foundation for other graduate. The methodological status and the viability of this very common procedure are unclear and are worth examining. This course introduces graduate students to the issues that commonly arise in qualitative and quantitative. For every individual, u, there is a function that specifies the state of u s infection under two hypothetical conditions.

Pdf processtracing has grown in popularity among qualitative researchers. The place of causation in the constitution of reality. James fearon, counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science, world politics, vol. Acounterfactual account of causation also exists in philosophy, which began with the seminal 1973 article of david lewis, titled causation. This article shows that some commonly advocated methodological principles of modern political science are inapprapriate for the study of complex ecologicalpolitical systems. The course complements other graduate offerings, which examine discrete empirical and. Political science, like all mature academic fields, advances by scholarly research. Students are also required to be familiar with readings from. This is important since most empirical work argues the value of findings through the use of the null hypothesis significance test. This handout will help you to recognize and to follow writing standards in political science. Fearon 1991 counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in. We found that, controlling for variables that affect levels of warrelated hostility and. It also provides conceptual tools for thinking about the causal roles of environmental and demographic factors, and it discusses various strategies for hypothesis and inference testing. The insignificance of null hypothesis significance testing.

Identify theories, hypotheses, and methods used in social science research. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political. A more personal indicator of the growing interest in qualitative methods is that over the last couple of. Scholars in comparative politics and international relations routinely evaluate causal hypotheses by referring to counterfactual cases where a hypothesized. That is true of american political development specialists as well as others. These include causal interactions, imperfect experiments, adjustment for. Department of political science kansas state university november 2009 the following is a list of essential readings for the political science half of phd exams in security studies.

Yet, in general, political scientists who study american domestic politics have underappreciated these effects. Each member of the academic community is expected to give full, fair, and formal. Qualitative research methods the university of akron. Graduate scope and methods political methodology lab. Political theorists tend to focus more on theoretical claims rather than empirical claims about the nature of the politics. Yale university international relations reading list 200506. Yale university department of political science international relations reading list 200506 general theory axelrod, robert 1984. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing 173 mocracy like england or taking a larger range of other actual cases a social democracy like sweden or a traditional dictatorship like austria in the dollfussschuschnigg period. Richard ned lebow, contingency, catalysts, and international system change, political science.

Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science world. Selection bias in comparative politics, political analysis 2 1990, pp. Fearon, counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science volume 43 issue 2 james d. None course description catalog this course in research methods prepares the student to understand materials and issues associated with but not limited to the logic of the scientific method, research. Overview of attention for article published in world politics, june 2011. Did the research design adequately test and confirm the theoretical proposition. Fearon, j 1991 counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science. Students are also required to be familiar with readings from the syllabi of core security studies courses offered by the political science department. Fearon without the prior democratic modernization of england, the reactionary methods adopted in germany and japan would scarcely have been possible. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science created date. Students are also required to be familiar with readings. Having said that, to draw anything more than educated guesses, you have to accept that the baseline bias across the past data is zero as well as that the differential treatment effect bias is zero too.

Contextual description allows political scientists to learn about the histori. Since political scientists often use counte factual a gument when assessing o justifying causal hypotheses, pa ticula ly in smalln esea ch settings, it seems im po. Counterfactual hypothesis testing, of course, has its own. Without both the capitalist and reactionary experiences, the communist method would have been something entirely. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science by james d. Counterfactuals play a necessary and fundamental, if often implicit and underdeveloped, role in the efforts of political scientists to assess their hypotheses about the causes of the phenomena they study 169. Applied statistics lecture notes princeton university. Counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science. Scholars in comparative politics and international relations routinely evaluate causal hypotheses by referring to counterfactual cases where a hypothesized causal factor is supposed to have been absent.

Section iii presents our definition of critical junctures and highlight its consequences for the application of the concept to empirical analysis. James fearon, counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science. Signaling versus the balance of power and interests. The counterfactual or potential outcome model has become increasingly standard for causal inference in epidemiological and medical studies. Steve van evera, guide to methods for students of political science cornell. In comparative politics and international relations, scholars are divided by. Counterfactual causality and empirical research in. Fearon without the prior democratic modernization of england, the reactionary methods adopted in germany and japan would scarcely have. Jun 11, 2015 fearon 1991 counterfactuals and hypothesis testing in political science counterfactuals play a necessary and fundamental, if often implicit and underdeveloped, role in the efforts of political scientists to assess their hypotheses about the causes of the phenomena they study 169. Formulatingextracting hypotheses a political science guide.