Suchergebnisse

Replication of simple and transparent experiments should promote the cumulation of knowledge. Yet, randomization alone does not guarantee simple analysis, transparent reporting, or third-party replication. This article surveys several challenges to cumulative learning from experiments and discusses emerging research practices—including several kinds of prespecification, two forms of replication, and a new model for coordinated experimental research—that may partially overcome the obstacles. I reflect on both the strengths and limitations of these new approaches to doing social science research.

Cientistas Sociais crescentemente exploram experimentos naturais em suas pesquisas. Este artigo faz um levantamento de aplicações recentes na Ciência Política, com o objetivo de mostrar as vantagens inferenciais proporcionadas por este tipo de desenho da pesquisa. Quando um tratamento designado é menos do que "como se" aleatoriamente, estudos podem se constituir em algo menos do que experimentos naturais e ameaças a inferência causal valida em cenários de observação podem surgir. O autor propõe um continuum de plausibilidade para experimentos naturais, definidos pela magnitude em que o tratamento designado é plausível "como se" aleatório e identifica vários estudos nesse continuo.

Two recent research programs—one on the sources of democratic consolidation and another on the causes and consequences of violent conflict—have tended to evolve in relative isolation. The contributions to this special issue of Journal of Conflict Resolution help to bridge this gap, through explicit theoretical and empirical analysis of the relationship between fighting and voting. Armed conflict and electoral politics may be strategic substitutes, in that political actors may optimally choose to submit to the ballot box or instead attempt to impose their will by force; or they may be strategic complements, in that actors use violence to bolster their electoral aims, or use electoral returns as sources of information on underlying preferences that they exploit in armed campaigns. In either case, the distribution of popular support for contending parties can shape not only the incidence but also the type of armed conflict, and it can also influence the incentives of parties to invest in institutional mechanisms that mitigate commitment problems and help to bring violent conflicts to an end. The contributions to this issue illuminate these themes and demonstrate the value of bringing these separate research programs into closer dialogue.

Oil rents may at times fall like 'manna from heaven' into the fiscal coffers of the state. Yet politicians also make decisions that can increase or decrease the extent to which oil rents accrue to the central government. Though counterintuitive, various evidence suggests that politicians sometimes do not seek to maximize the state's claim on rents. In this article, the author substantiates this observation with evidence from Venezuela and then develops a formal model of the relationship between electoral competition and rent choice. The author argues that the model can explain why politicians allowed the central government's share of rents to decline in Venezuela beginning in the 1990s, even though a decline in rents plausibly contributed to the destabilization of Venezuelan democracy. The argument illuminates patterns of rent capture in other cases, whereas the model may be useful in many settings in which the gains from economic investment are realized over several electoral terms. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Inc., copyright holder.]