Suchergebnisse

The disagreement between rational choice (RCI) & historical institutionalism (HI) is investigated in the politics of enfranchisement of universal adult male suffrage. The ease of blurring the HI/RCI distinction is identified in how analysis, explanation, & normative assessment commingle in microeconomics. This underscores the multiple tasks that confront equilibrium based theories. A brief historical sketch characterizes universal suffrage as an equilibrium institution. Further exploration identifies how RCI builds normative justification into purportedly "positive" accounts of "moral" or "ethical" explanations that can advance normatively attractive institutions, such as universal suffrage. The lessons learned from the politics of enfranchisement are that RCI accounts must abandon their reduced form of analysis & harness the analytical advantages offered by bargaining explanations of institutional emergence. Tables, References. J. Harwell

The last decade featured the emergence of a significant and growing literature concerning comparative-historical methods. This literature offers methodological tools for causal and descriptive inference that go beyond the techniques currently available in mainstream statistical analysis. In terms of causal inference, new procedures exist for testing hypotheses about necessary and sufficient causes, and these procedures address the skepticism that mainstream methodologists may hold about necessary and sufficient causation. Likewise, new techniques are available for analyzing hypotheses that refer to complex temporal processes, including path-dependent sequences. In the area of descriptive inference, the comparative-historical literature offers important tools for concept analysis and for achieving measurement validity. Given these contributions, comparative-historical methods merit a central place within the general field of social science methodology.

Courses on qualitative methods are underrepresented in top political science graduate programs when compared to courses on quantitative methods (Bennett, Barth, and Rutherford 2003). This underrepresentation has led some political scientists to call for more qualitative methods courses in their curricula. However, "qualitative" methodology is a diverse field with many currents, raising the challenging task of deciding what material and what courses should be offered as basic components of graduate training.