Observing the Counterfactual? The Search for Political Experiments in Nature

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 341-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Robinson ◽  
John E. McNulty ◽  
Jonathan S. Krasno
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
Conference Presentations

A search of recent political science literature and conference presentations shows substantial fascination with the concept of the natural experiment. However, there seems to be a wide array of definitions and applications employed in research that purports to analyze natural experiments. In this introductory essay to the special issue, we attempt to define natural experiments and discuss related issues of research design. In addition, we briefly explore the basic methodological issues around the appropriate analysis of natural experiments and give an overview of different techniques. The overarching theme of this essay and of this issue is to encourage applied researchers to look for natural experiments in their own work and to think more systematically about research design.

scholarly journals No Justice, No Peace: Political Science Perspectives on the American Carceral State

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-449
Author(s):  
Allison P. Harris ◽  
Hannah L. Walker ◽  
Laurel Eckhouse
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Class Inequality ◽  
Key Dimensions ◽  
Criminal Legal System

AbstractThis essay explores four key dimensions of political science literature on the U.S. criminal legal system, by way of introducing articles in the special issue on criminal justice featured in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Politics. We situate police as an institution of social control, rather than providing safety for people vulnerable to crime. The vast array of policy tools to surveil, track, and detain citizens, which lack commensurate restraints on their application, amount to a finely tuned carceral machine that can be deployed against groups newly identified as deviant. We therefore turn attention to this dynamic with our second theme: the criminalization of immigrants, the expansion of interior immigration enforcement, and the consequent targeting of Latinx people. We likewise discuss lessons for reform that can be drawn from research on representation and the political socialization that occurs as a consequence of involuntary contact with the system. We conclude with a brief discussion of directions for future research. The criminal legal system is a key force for persistent racial and class inequality. By turning attention to the politics of the criminal legal system, we forward a critical and understudied facet of American political life that intersects with all corners of the discipline.

scholarly journals Capturing causation in political science: the perspective of research design

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Luigi Curini ◽  
Alessia Damonte
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Pluralist Approach

Abstract In the last decades, ‘research design’ has become a strategic topic across political science. An emerging discourse relies on it to encompass paradigmatic oppositions and cultivate a pluralist approach to causation. As an introduction to the special issue on the topic, we offer an outline of the roles that the discipline recognizes to design in its relation to models and contend that, in a time of fascination for predictors, political science pluralism allows for balancing interpretability and validity of findings at once.

Introduction: What is a ‘gene’ and why does it matter for political science?

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 305-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter K Hatemi ◽  
Enda Byrne ◽  
Rose McDermott
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Genetic Research ◽  
Genetic Models ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Behavioral Genetic ◽  
Political Preferences ◽  
Initial Wave ◽  
Political Behaviors ◽  
Second Wave

A recent stream of influential research suggests that the inclusion of behavioral genetic models can further inform our understanding of political preferences and behaviors. But it has often remained unclear what these models mean, or how they might matter for the broader discourse in the political science literature. The initial wave of behavioral genetic research focused on foundational discovery, and has begun to outline the basic properties of genetic influence on political traits, while a second wave of research has begun to link genetic findings to broader aspects of political behaviors. In the introduction to this special issue, we explicate how genes operate, the most common forms of behavioral genetic analyses, and their recent applications toward political behaviors. In so doing, we discuss what these findings mean for political science, and describe how best to interpret them. We note potential limitations of behavioral genetic approaches and remain cautious against the overextension of such models. The five articles that follow strive to move beyond discovery and focus more on the integration of behavioral genetic models with mainstream theories of political behavior to analyze problems of interest to political scientists.

Case study 2

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewan Ferlie ◽  
Sue Dopson ◽  
Chris Bennett ◽  
Michael D. Fischer ◽  
Jean Ledger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Think Tanks ◽  
Science Literature ◽  
Informal Networks ◽  
Think Tank ◽  
Significant Potential ◽  
Key Stakeholders

This chapter analyses the role of think tanks in generating a distinctive mode of policy knowledge, pragmatically orientated to inform and shape issues of importance to civil society. Drawing on political science literature, we argue that think tanks exploit niche areas of expertise and influence to actively mobilize policy analyses and recommendations across diverse stakeholders. Through our exploratory mapping of think tanks, geographically concentrated within London, we characterize their influence as significantly boosting knowledge intensity across the regional ecosystem. In particular, we study the empirical case of one London-based think tank which powerfully mobilized policy knowledge through its formal and informal networks to build influential expert consensus amongst key stakeholders. We conclude that such organizations act as key knowledge producers and mobilizers, with significant potential to influence policy discourses and implementation.

The Causal Effect of Polls on Turnout Intention: A Local Randomization Regression Discontinuity Approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Pablo Brugarolas ◽  
Luis Miller
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Time Window ◽  
Causal Effect

Abstract This letter reports the results of a study that combined a unique natural experiment and a local randomization regression discontinuity approach to estimate the effect of polls on turnout intention. We found that the release of a poll increases turnout intention by 5%. This effect is robust to a number of falsification tests of predetermined covariates, placebo outcomes, and changes in the time window selected to estimate the effect. The letter discusses the advantages of the local randomization approach over the standard continuity-based design to study important cases in political science where the running variable is discrete; a method that may expand the range of empirical topics that can be analyzed using regression discontinuity methods.

Black-Palestinian Transnational Solidarity: Renewals, Returns, and Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 7-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Noura Erakat ◽  
Marc Lamont Hill
Keyword(s):  
Special Issue ◽  
Political Work ◽  
Introductory Essay ◽  
Recent Increase ◽  
Political Relationships ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The World ◽  
New Methodologies ◽  
Transnational Solidarity

This introductory essay outlines the context for this special issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies on Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity (BPTS). Through the analytic of “renewal,” the authors point to the recent increase in individual and collective energies directed toward developing effective, reciprocal, and transformative political relationships within various African-descendant and Palestinian communities around the world. Drawing from the extant BPTS literature, this essay examines the prominent intellectual currents in the field and points to new methodologies and analytics that are required to move the field forward. With this essay, the authors aim not only to contextualize the field and to frame this special issue, but also to chart new directions for future intellectual and political work.

Natural “Natural Experiments” in Economics

2000 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 827-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R Rosenzweig ◽  
Kenneth I Wolpin
Keyword(s):  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Economic Models ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
Natural Experiments ◽  
Simple Economic

The recent literature exploiting natural events as “natural experiment” instruments is reviewed to assess to what extent it has advanced empirical knowledge. A weakness of the studies that adopt this approach is that the necessary set of behavioral, market, and technological assumptions made by the authors in justifying their interpretations of the estimates is often absent. The methodology and findings from twenty studies are summarized and simple economic models are used to elucidate the implicit assumptions made by the authors and to demonstrate the sensitivity of the interpretations of the findings to the relaxation of some of these assumptions.

Psychophysiology, cognition, and political differences

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Mansell ◽  
Allison Harell ◽  
Elisabeth Gidengil ◽  
Patrick A. Stewart
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Future ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Political Differences ◽  
Science Framework

AbstractWe introduce the Politics and the Life Sciences special issue on Psychophysiology, Cognition, and Political Differences. This issue represents the second special issue funded by the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences that adheres to the Open Science Framework for registered reports (RR). Here pre-analysis plans (PAPs) are peer-reviewed and given in-principle acceptance (IPA) prior to data being collected and/or analyzed, and are published contingent upon the preregistration of the study being followed as proposed. Bound by a common theme of the importance of incorporating psychophysiological perspectives into the study of politics, broadly defined, the articles in this special issue feature a unique set of research questions and methodologies. In the following, we summarize the findings, discuss the innovations produced by this research, and highlight the importance of open science for the future of political science research.

Rethinking Comparison

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Comparative Methods ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Qualitative Research Design

Qualitative comparative methods – and specifically controlled qualitative comparisons – are central to the study of politics. They are not the only kind of comparison, though, that can help us better understand political processes and outcomes. Yet there are few guides for how to conduct non-controlled comparative research. This volume brings together chapters from more than a dozen leading methods scholars from across the discipline of political science, including positivist and interpretivist scholars, qualitative methodologists, mixed-methods researchers, ethnographers, historians, and statisticians. Their work revolutionizes qualitative research design by diversifying the repertoire of comparative methods available to students of politics, offering readers clear suggestions for what kinds of comparisons might be possible, why they are useful, and how to execute them. By systematically thinking through how we engage in qualitative comparisons and the kinds of insights those comparisons produce, these collected essays create new possibilities to advance what we know about politics.

Qualitative longitudinal research: researching fatherhood and fathers’ experiences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Miller
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Longitudinal Research ◽  
Methodological Issues ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Transition To Motherhood ◽  
Transition To Fatherhood ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Made In

This chapter focuses on a qualitative longitudinal (QL) research project, Transition to Fatherhood, and later episodes of fathering and fatherhood experiences. It begins by exploring the research design of this study and considers the inherent gendered and other assumptions made in it, which mirrors an earlier research project on Transition to Motherhood. Following an examination of some of the methodological issues that arose during this qualitative longitudinal study, the chapter turns to reflect on the important question of what adding time into a qualitative study can do. It considers what happens when narratives collected in later interviews are incorporated into earlier analysis and findings as lives and fatherhood experiences change, as well as the benefits of researching individuals over time.

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