apsa - cp · 2018-12-19 · apsa-cp vol 17, no. 2 3 new partisan politics it would be foolhardy to...

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Editorial Board

Robert Dowd, C.S.C.

Andrew Gould

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Donald Kommers

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Guillermo O’Donnell

Contact: Decio Hall, Box “D”University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame,Indiana 46556. Tel. 574-631-5681http://www.nd.edu/~apsacp

The Organized Section in Comparative Politics of the American Political Science Association

(Continued on page 2)

APSA - CP

Torben IversenHarvard [email protected]

Volume 17, Issue 2 Summer 2006 Newsletter

Guest EssayClass Politics is Dead! Long Live ClassPolitics! A Political Economy Perspectiveon the New Partisan Politics

increased over time. McCarty, Pooleand Rosenthal (2005) show thatAmerican voters, despite all the talkof a culture war, are more likely tovote their economic interest todaythan they were thirty years ago.Cusack, Iversen, and Rehm (2006)show that mass political preferencescontinue to depend intimately onpeoples’ economic interests. Thecross-national variance in redistribu-tion is also no less tied to partisan-ship today than two decades ago(Huber and Stephens 2001), andeven institutions such as corporategovernance, often understood in effi-ciency terms, are being reformedalong partisan lines (Hoepner 2001;Roe 2003).

There is broad agreement amongcomparativists that political conflict inthe rich democracies has movedaway from “old” issues of state owner-ship, redistribution from capital tolabor, and unemployment versus infla-tion as macroeconomic goals. Forsome this means that the democraticclass struggle that assumed such acentral role in past research on thewelfare state (e.g., Esping-Andersen1990), the labor market (e.g.,Goldthorpe 1984), and macroeconom-ic policies (Hibbs 1977) has givenway to a new “value politics” centeredaround issues of the family, gender,choice, the environment, and racialand sexual tolerance (e.g., Inglehart1987; Inglehart and Abramson 1999;Kitschelt 1994; Kitschelt and Rehm2005). But political economists havelong been skeptical of these claims.While most agree that traditional classpolitics has been receding, evidenceis mounting that the issues that clutterthe political agendas of advanceddemocracies are still fundamentallydistributive in nature.

Kwon and Pontusson (2005), forexample, find that the effect of parti-sanship on welfare spending has

“My aim is not to dismiss the

role of ‘value politics,’ but

rather to suggest that distrib-

utive economic issues are as

important today as they were

fifty years ago.”

This brief essay cannot do justice tothe voluminous new comparative liter-ature on distributive politics, but it can

2 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

reflects changing levels of voter sup-port for the left and right or changesin the ideological positions of parties,the dashed lines show the averageleft-right positions based on threeexpert surveys. These surveys assignconstant left-right scores to parties,so any changes will only captureshifts in the left-right balance of elec-toral support. It is apparent that thisbalance did not change much overtime, whereas party positions did.Especially in economic policies, therewas a notable shift to the right start-ing in the late 1970s.

draw attention to the reality of neweconomic divisions. My aim is not todismiss the role of “value politics,” butrather to suggest that distributive eco-nomic issues are as important todayas they were fifty years ago. Far moreinteresting than the question ofwhether distributive politics still mat-ters, is the question of how it matters.

Fifty Years of Partisan Division

Based on the Comparative ManifestoProject (CMP), Figure 1 shows theaverage ideological positions of politi-cal parties in the 17 democraciesfrom 1946 to 1998 (weighted by theparties’ share of seats in the lowerhouse). Panel a) shows CMP’s over-all left-right index based on 24 differ-ent salience measures of party posi-tions across economic and non-eco-nomic issues (see Budge et al. 2001for details), while panel b) shows aneconomic left-right index constructedby Thomas Cusack based on eightmeasures of the importance partiesplace on markets versus state regula-tion, government efficiency versussocial protection, etc. (see Cusackand Engelhardt 2002 for details). Bothindexes can in principle vary between-100 and +100, with 0 being a neutralor centrist position.

Section OfficersPresident

Sidney TarrowCornell [email protected]

Vice-President, President-Elect

Peter A. GourevitchUniversity of California, San [email protected]

Secretary-Treasurer

Karen RemmerDuke [email protected]

2006 Program Chair

Deborah J. YasharPrinceton [email protected]

Executive Council

Elizabeth PerryHarvard [email protected]

Mathew ShugartUniversity of California, San [email protected]

Susan StokesYale University [email protected]

Anna Grzymala-BusseUniversity of [email protected]

Guest Essay

The solid lines in the center of thegraphs are the weighted averages forthe 17 legislatures. Note that theoverall left-right position of partiesturned slightly to the left during the1960s, remained there until the late1970s, and then started to move tothe right. To gauge whether this shift

“Far more interesting than

[...] whether distributive poli-

tics still matters, is the ques-

tion of how it matters.”

“[...] distributive conflict is no

longer mainly between capi-

tal and labor, but rather

between workers owning dif-

ferent levels and types of

human capital.”

It is a mistake to infer from this thatthere has been convergence in thepolicy preferences of the left and right(shown in Figure 1). While there is aslight tendency for such convergencesince the 1980s in the overall index,in economic policies the gap is aswide in the 1990s as it was in anyprevious decade. Since the overallindex includes both economic andnon-economic issues, this means thatthe only (weak) tendency for conver-gence is in non-economic issues –contrary to what some political scien-tists seem to believe. There has alsonot been any drop in the correlationbetween the economic and the over-all ideological left-right indices, whichhovers around .85 for the entire post-war period. The pertinent question isnot whether economic issues contin-ue to be politically salient, but whatexactly these issues are.

3APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

New Partisan Politics

It would be foolhardy to try to identifyevery new issue of distributive politics

tributive politics (loosely based onIversen 2005), and then propose afew areas of distributive conflict thathave emerged as particularly salientones.

To understand the new politics ofclass, a couple of principles are use-ful to keep in mind. The first is thatdistributive conflict is no longer main-ly between capital and labor, butrather between workers owning differ-ent levels and types of human capital(Figure 2). Since employers makeinvestments in the skills of theiremployees, employer interests willalso diverge (see Martin and Swank2004), but I focus here on the laborside. Levels of skills determineincome and hence redistributive pref-erences, whereas the specificity ofthose skills determines exposure tolabor risks and hence preferencesover social insurance.

Guest Essay-4

0-2

00

2040

1940 1960 1980 2000Year

1946-1998Panel a: Overall left-right ideology

Left

Right

Lower house(experts)

Lower house(CMP)

-100

-50

050

1940 1960 1980 2000Year

1946-1998Panel b: Economic left-right ideology

Lower house(experts)

Lower house(CMP)

Left

Right

Figure 1. The left-right position of political parties in 17 legislatures (1946-1998)

discussed within the increasingly richand sophisticated comparative litera-ture. Rather, my aim here is to outlinea very simple way to think about dis-

“A common claim […] is that

the welfare state has 'grown

to limits' and that the political

agenda has migrated to non-

economic issues. Yet many

political economists draw

precisely the opposite con-

clusion.”

The second principle is that distribu-tive politics is an outcome of politicalcoalitions (the meaning of the differ-ent types of coalitions noted in thetable is discussed below). Such coali-tions can be thought of as parliamen-tary alliances between parties repre-senting different groups, but they canalso be between “factions” insidebroad cross-class parties, or between


duced divisions between “insiders”and “outsiders,” thus threatening thecross-class foundation of the postwarsettlement (Saint-Paul 1996; Rueda2005). Although job protection is notjust a political tool to secure privilegesin the labor market, but also a meansto cultivate firm-specific skills, con-flicts over the regulation of labor mar-kets have intensified (witness the tur-moil surrounding the aborted Frenchyouth labor legislation). The reasonshave to do with changes in technolo-gy and the structure of production,and the associated shifts in politicalpower.

the political agenda has migrated tonon-economic issues. Yet many politi-cal economists draw precisely theopposite conclusion. During the peri-od of rapid economic growth andincreasing demand for social insur-ance, political parties competed withone another by offering targeted ben-efits to their own constituencies whilespreading the costs among unorgan-ized taxpayers. As Pierson argues,the “growth to limits” marked the tran-sition to a new politics where anessentially fixed budget constrainttransforms every new policy into azero-sum conflict. There is now alarge and sophisticated literature onthe distributive battles of reformingevery aspect of the welfare state fromhealth care and pensions to benefitstargeted to the poor (e.g., Pierson2001; Ebbinghaus and Manow 2001;Streeck and Thelen 2005). None ofthis literature suggests that partisanconflict over taxes and spending willrecede any time soon.

The New Politics of Labor MarketDeregulation

A second line of conflict is over the(de)regulation of labor markets. Thehigh employment protection systemsthat emerged in many Europeancountries after the war have pro-

Guest Essay

“Much partisan political con-

flict continues to be over the

level of taxation and spend-

ing.”

organized interests and the govern-ment in “social pacts” (on the former,see Iversen and Soskice 2006; onthe latter, see Rhodes 2001).

Tax and Spend Politics NeverGoes Out of Fashion

Much partisan political conflict contin-ues to be over the level of taxationand spending, and there is mountingevidence that the left redistributesmore than the right (e.g., Hicks andSwank 1992; Bradley et al. 2003).What tips the scales between the leftand the right is partly a function ofpolitical institutions and party sys-tems (Iversen and Soskice 2006), butit is also partly a function of middleclass demand for social insurance(Moene and Wallerstein 2003).Although redistribution is not the aimof social insurance, redistribution canalso be designed to serve insurancepurposes. Correspondingly, in someEuropean countries the welfare statewas built around a cross-class com-promise between low-income workersand high-skilled workers (especiallyin industry) who wanted to protecttheir investments in specific skills.

Does this logic still apply? A commonclaim, after all, is that the welfarestate has “grown to limits” and that

F i g u r e 2 . A p o l i t ic a l e c o n o m y t y p o l o g y o f t y p e s o f w o r k e r s

L e v e l o f s k i ll s (in c o m e)

L o w H i g h

T y p e o fs k i l l

S p e c i f i cL o w - s k i lli n d u s t r i a l w o r k e r s

H i g h - s k il li n d u s t r i a l

w o r k e rs

G e n e r a lL o w - s k i ll

s e r v ic e w o r k e r s

P ro fe ss io n a l s

Class coalitions

Cross-class coalitions

During the first three decades afterthe Second World War, skilled andsemi-skilled labor were complementsin a Fordist production process thatrelied on long assembly lines and atightly integrated network of suppliersand buyers. This gave low-skill unionsconsiderable bargaining power and


advantage over the left in courting themiddle class by offering support forpublic investment in higher educationwithout taxes to fund redistribution.

The New Politics of Gender

Another distributive conflict that islikely to shape partisan politics foryears to come is over gender and thefamily. Women have entered the labormarket in massive numbers duringthe past four decades, in partbecause of the expansion of the serv-ice economy. The trend has beenaccelerated by rising divorce rates,which gives women an incentive toseek paid employment as an insur-ance against the financial conse-quences of divorce (Edlund andPande 2002).

was the foundation for centralizedwage bargaining and solidaristicwage policies. The decentralizationthat occurred during the 1980s and1990s came as a result of skill-biasedtechnological change, where thedemand for skilled workers rose whilesemi-skilled workers experiencedhigher unemployment and falling rela-tive wages (Pontusson and Swenson1996; Iversen 1999). At the sametime, a growing number of business-es in services (retail, social and per-sonal services, etc.) that rely on fluid,external labor markets oppose highlabor costs and training requirements,as well as restrictions on firing.

(Lindert 2004) is that a significantshare of this spending has gone intohuman capital formation. Becausespending on primary and secondaryeducation improved the skills of chil-dren of low-income families, the effectwas a significant compression of theskill distribution and, hence, theincome distribution (Boix 1998;Garrett 1998). But the politics of edu-cational investment has shifted in thepast two decades. As primary andsecondary education has become vir-tually universal, the conflict is nowone over investment in higher educa-tion (Ansell 2006). All parties under-stand the importance of such invest-ments for growth, but children ofskilled blue-collar workers face verysignificant “invisible” class barriers tohigher education. For this reason, thetraditional constituents of left partiesmay see the massive investment inuniversity education as a regressivetransfer to the rich.

“Another distributive conflict

that is likely to shape parti-

san politics for years to

come is over gender and the

family.”

But the employment opportunities forwomen vary significantly across coun-tries. For the reasons elaborated byEstevez-Abe (2002), because it isharder for women to commit to con-tinuous careers, they are at a disad-vantage in specific-skill economieswhere such commitment is critical toemployers. This problem is exacer-bated by extensive regulation ofemployment and wages becausewage compression and job protectionslow the expansion of personal andsocial services. This means that theinsider-outsider division discussedabove is overlaid by a gender divide.In this sense, women have an interestin flexible labor markets, even asmany also have an interest in redistri-

Guest Essay

“A second line of conflict is

over the (de)regulation of

labor markets [...]”

The bifurcation of the risk structurehas created a new politics of labormarket reform. A critical question iswhether skilled workers can forgecross-class alliances with low-skilledworkers to “flexibilize” temporary andpart-time employment while compen-sating for lower wages and higher jobinsecurity through transfers. TheDanish “flexicurity” model, and to alesser extent the Dutch model, maybe cases in point. The “danger” is theemergence of a majority coalitionbetween professionals and low-skilled workers (the latter organizedinto new right parties) imposingacross-the-board deregulation cou-pled with means-tested transfers thatexclude foreigners and other “unde-serving” groups.

The New Politics of Investment inHigher Education

One reason why it is virtually impos-sible to find a trade-off between gov-ernment expenditure and growth

“All parties understand the

importance of [...] invest-

ments [in higher education]

for growth, but children of

skilled blue-collar workers

face [...] ‘invisible’ class bar-

riers to higher education.”

The left may still be able to forge acompromise with the middle class inwhich investment in higher educationis exchanged for redistributive trans-fers. Educational reform, however,must be linked to aggressive efforts atreducing the class bias in universityenrollment – which has been donewith some success in Britain andScandinavia. Otherwise the rightwould appear to have a natural


identify the institutions and othernationally specific conditions (politicalparty systems, the role of organizedgroups, the structure of the economy,etc.) that affect the power of differentactors to set the agenda and theirincentives to ally with some groupsrather than others – the structuresthat induce equilibria, in other words.

bution. But the gender cleavage isnot simply a gendered version of theconflict over labor market reform.Women need access to inexpensivechildcare and the flexibility to with-draw from (and then re-enter) thelabor market for the purposes ofestablishing families. Unless this ismade possible by flexible labor mar-kets, the opportunities of women areuniquely dependent on the state pro-viding services and jobs in the publicsector. When it does, the “outsideoptions” of women improve, and theirbargaining power within the familyrises.

Conclusion

The textbook depiction of class poli-tics that pitted labor against capitalmay never have been realistic (seethe historical work by Swenson 2002and Mares 2003). But certainly suchpolitics is now dead. And yet, distribu-tive politics is still very much alive.Recent comparative work on welfarestates, labor markets, and gender pol-itics has documented how many ofthe key policy issues continue torevolve around “who gets what, when,and how.” And how could it be other-wise when the fiscal constraints onthe state make every tax or spendingproposal a zero-sum conflict?

Guest Essay

Note:References are available athttp://www.nd.edu/~apsacp and http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~iversen/IversenCP_references.doc .

“The textbook depiction of

class politics that pitted labor

against capital may never

have been realistic […] But

certainly such politics is now

dead. And yet, distributive

politics is still very much

alive. […]”

The public sector, both as a serviceprovider and as an employer, istherefore a source of political conflictbetween men and women, and this iskey to understanding the rising gen-der gap in voting behavior (Iversenand Rosenbluth 2006). The size ofthis gap, however, will be conditionedby the importance of the family as asource of income and risk pooling.Paradoxically, in the countries wherethe outside options of women arevery poor, such as Japan and south-ern Europe, it may make sense forwomen to support policies that pro-tect the income of the male breadwin-ner.

“Recent comparative work

on welfare states, labor mar-

kets, and gender politics has

documented how many of

the key policy issues contin-

ue to revolve around ‘who

gets what, when, and how.’

And how could it be other-

wise when the fiscal con-

straints on the state make

every tax or spending pro-

posal a zero-sum conflict?”

Yet, the distributive space is becom-ing more complex, and the challengefor comparativists is to break downthis complexity into a set of analytical-ly tractable games. I have brieflysketched some of the forms thesegames take, relying on the recentCPE literature. The next task is to

“[...] the distributive space is

becoming more complex,

and the challenge for com-

parativists is to break down

this complexity into a set of

analytically tractable games.”

Although this work has begun (e.g.,Hall and Thelen 2005), most of it stilllies ahead. As experts in institutionaldifferences, comparativists are in aunique position to make many of thekey contributions.


Political scientists are divided aboutwhether social science should strivefor universal generalizations. Somebelieve that a goal of social scienceis to arrive at universal generaliza-tions: that is, since "theory" is by defi-nition general, our task as social sci-entists is to replace proper nounswith common ones, and so on.Others insist that political phenomenaare inherently domain-specific andcausally heterogeneous and, as aresult, the search for the universal ismisguided. Are these divergent viewspotentially complementary, or irrecon-cilable? Do we have any universalgeneralizations now? If not, is there away to aggregate middle-range theo-ries into an ever-more comprehen-sive understanding of the politicalworld? Is middle-range theory a way-station along the path to universaltheory, or is it the end of the road?

We posed these questions to amethodologically diverse group ofaccomplished scholars - DanielZiblatt, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,Valerie Bunce, and Kenneth Shepsle- expecting to elicit divergentresponses. Unexpectedly, all agreethat universal and middle-rangeapproaches to the study of politicspotentially complement one another.None of the four argues that middle-range theory is the end of the road.(Perhaps our sample was not asdiverse as we thought! Readers whoreject the goal of universalism out-right are invited to submit their viewsto us for their possible inclusion inthe Controversies section of the nextissue of this newsletter.)

However, our contributors do divergeon other questions. Ziblatt writesabout universal generalizations in

prospective and hypothetical terms,as worthy aspirations but not accom-plished facts. He mounts an eruditedefense of middle-range theory asthe best path to universals. Bueno deMesquita, by contrast, not onlybelieves that universal generaliza-tions exist, but lists a considerablenumber of candidates for this status.Bunce counsels both modesty aboutmaking universal claims and a strate-gy of hedging our bets. She wouldfeel more confident about universalclaims if they were backed by multi-method testing, especially becausewhat may appear to be universal ten-dencies using one method will proba-bly be revealed as a variety ofprocesses when studied with othermethods.

approximately true, and alsoimproved by cross-fertilization withmiddle-range approaches, just as thelatter are enriched by interactionswith universal theorizing.

If this symposium makes one thingunambiguously clear, it is that wemust define what the criteria for auniversal theory are. Is it sufficient tohave a convincing logic (given initialassumptions), perhaps supported bya few illustrative examples? Or doesuniversalism require consistency withall the empirical evidence currentlyavailable, including evidence neededto test competing hypotheses? Wethink that both are required. A univer-sal theory must survive the most rig-orous and extensive testing; but itmust also possess a convincing logicthat allows us to believe that it willstill hold true in as-yet unobserved,hypothetical situations.

Symposium

Introduction

Universal vs. Middle-Range Theory

“Some believe that a goal of

social science is to arrive at

universal generalizations […]

Others insist that political

phenomena are inherently

domain-specific and causally

heterogeneous […]. Are

these divergent views poten-

tially complementary, or

irreconcilable?”

Shepsle adopts a nuanced view thatuniversals exist, but must be properlyunderstood as being true only underprecisely defined conditions, condi-tions which may not ever be com-pletely satisfied in the observableworld. They can nevertheless be

Symposium8 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

Introduction

All political scientists recognize theimportance of formulating generaltheoretical propositions to advanceknowledge. But, how is theory formu-lation best done? Should our disci-pline’s research energy and time bespent elaborating ever broader con-ceptual and theoretical schemes, orshould we be focused on explainingspecific phenomena and puzzles?These questions are neither new norunique to political science. The pur-suit of a single set of rules that mightexplain all human behavior reflectsas long a tradition in the history ofsocial thought as does the contraryidea that progress (both political andscientific) is most effectively achievedin incremental steps. After all, thehedgehog, as Isaiah Berlin remindsus, has always been happiest know-ing one big thing, while the fox hasthrived knowing many small things.1

But is comparative politics best doneby foxes or hedgehogs? In this

essay, I make the case for a politicalscience conducted by foxes, whereless value is placed on the quest for asingle grand synthesis of politics andmore on a pluralism of middle-rangetheories that closely engages the realand diverse problems of politics. Ialso argue that such middle rangetheory makes its most substantialcontributions when scholars do thefollowing: narrowly identify substan-tive topics, closely specify scope con-ditions, and meticulously define con-cepts. The central benefit of middle-range theory, conceived in theseterms, is that while aiming at parsimo-ny and generalization, it is not fright-ened by empirical reality.

retrospect, we see just how powerfulMerton’s concept of middle-range the-ory truly was. Indeed, Merton’s visionof social science won out, asParsons’ ambitious theoretical andconceptual scaffolding crumbledunder the weight of its own effort atuniversalization; it had became sohopelessly abstract that the theoryhad less and less relevance to thereal world.

Today, social scientists who findthemselves working within Merton’sstill appealingly broad middle range oftheory-building face not one, but twochallenges. The first comes from onestrand of rational choice theory thatasserts paradigmatic privilege for arationalist epistemology and formalmethodology. This perspective pre-sumes an unbounded universalismthat resonates with Parsons’s ownaims fifty years ago. But today thereis a second challenge, from the otherend of the spectrum, that views allsocial science with a skeptical eyeand asks whether social science, nomatter how careful, can truly extractitself from its own web of assump-tions, language, and bias. Given bothof these present-day paradigms, it isworth returning to Merton’s concept of“theory of the middle range” to askwhether it offers contemporary stu-dents of comparative politics somesolid ground upon which to formulatetheory.

In his original essay, Merton beginsby contrasting his vision of middlerange theory with two other types ofscholarly enterprises. He writes thatmiddle-range theories, “lie betweenthe minor but necessary workinghypotheses that evolve [. . .] duringday-to-day research and the all inclu-sive systematic efforts to develop aunified theory that will explain all theobserved uniformities of social behav-ior . . .”3 But what exactly lies withinthis middle range? A perspectiveloosely informed by Merton’s concep-

Of CourseGeneralize, butHow? Returning toMiddle-RangeTheory inComparativePolitics

Daniel ZiblattHarvard [email protected]

“I make the case for a politi-

cal science […] where less

value is placed on the quest

for a single grand synthesis

of politics and more on a plu-

ralism of middle-range theo-

ries [...]”

Why Middle-Level Theory?

Thanks in part to Robert Merton (whofirst popularized the phrase “middle-range” theory in a frequently reprinted1949 essay), social scientists havelong had a broad area of epistemo-logical ground upon which to con-struct theory that aims at being gener-al and parsimonious but that appreci-ates the need to confront empiricalcomplexity.2 In his day, Robert Mertonwas responding to what he regardedas the prematurely ambitious theoreti-cal scheme of Talcott Parsons, whosetheory of social action established theterms of sociological research in theUnited States after World War II. In

Symposium 9APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

tion argues that theory ought not shyaway from generalization but insteadshould adopt an alternative strategyof generalization. To build “theory ofthe middle range” is to reject “grandtheory’s” tendency to formulate theorybefore confronting evidence and thenonly selectively turn to evidence toillustrate its “analytical power.” Bycontrast, the best middle-range theorybegins with real-world empirical puz-zles, then weighs the analytical powerof competing arguments to explainboth process and outcomes, andfinally develops broader argumentsout of specific empirical findings.More systematically, middle-rangetheory is marked by three core attrib-utes.

First, middle-range theories have adelimited substantive focus. Their pur-pose is not to create a theory of poli-tics in general, but rather a theory, forexample, of welfare state formation,state-building, or democratic rever-sals. Grand theory, in either its olderstructural-functional guise or in itsmore recent versions, tends to beginwith a “unified” and all-encompassingtheory of politics. Empirical instancesare then selected to illustrate the rele-vance of the argument across a rangeof areas. By contrast, middle-rangetheories begin with specific empiricalpuzzles relevant to a specific litera-ture, push aside preconceptions asfar as possible, and then seriouslyconsider competing arguments toexplain some historical or cross-national variation. Take M. StevenFish’s recent work on the failure ofpostcommunist democracy in Russia.4Fish asks a very specific question:why has Russian politics failed toexperience the same blossoming ofdemocracy as many of its postcom-munist neighbors? Placed in cross-national context, Fish systematicallycombines quantitative and qualitativeevidence to consider many hypothe-ses, settling on three core variables:Russia has too much oil, too little eco-

nomic liberalization, and too weak anational legislature, which togetherblock democracy in Russia. The ana-lytical power of this work of middle-range theory comes from the fact thatit deploys a systematic methodologyto weigh competing arguments toanswer a specific empirical question,rather than deploying a single pre-existing world view to develop a theo-ry of politics.

a theory’s applicability? With the aimof avoiding the pitfalls of “overreach-ing,” middle-range theories identifythe parameters within which a theorycan be expected to be valid, therebyestablishing a reasonable standardagainst which the work can bejudged.6 In recent years, some of themost successful works in comparativepolitics have developed middle-rangetheory insofar as they aim at general-ization but not universalization, byspecifying their scope. Marc MorjeHoward’s The Weakness of CivilSociety in Postcommunist Europe(Cambridge University Press, 2003)proposes and tests an explanation ofthe postcommunist decay of civil soci-ety (note the spatial scope of theargument). Similarly, in his recentwork Defending Democracy:Reactions to Extremism in InterwarEurope (Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 2005), Giovanni Capocciadevelops a rigorously tested argu-ment about elite strategies ofresponding to extremism by focusingon interwar Europe (note the tempo-ral scope) that is relevant, Capocciapoints out, whenever the conditions ofpolarization that he identifies as cru-cial are present. Overall, we see thatthe power of middle-range theorycomes from generalizing within verywell-specified boundaries.

The third attribute of middle-rangetheory is careful and systematic con-ceptualization. Middle-range theoristsfollow Giovanni Sartori’s lead to avoidthe double-edged challenge of con-ceptualization. On the one hand, mid-dle-range theorists resist the tempta-tion of “conceptual stretching” thatoften is entailed in universal theoriz-ing, where the extension of a conceptis augmented without diminishing itsmeaning.7 For example, it is importantto be sensitive to the fact, as a mid-dle-range theorist might tell us, thatthe concept of a “political party” or“civil society” might differ in funda-mental ways between, say, postcom-

“[...] the best middle-range

theory begins with real-world

empirical puzzles, then

weighs the analytical power

of competing arguments to

explain both process and

outcomes, and finally devel-

ops broader arguments out

of specific empirical find-

ings.”

Second, middle-range theorists self-consciously reflect upon and specifywhat is often called the “scope condi-tions” of a theory. Classic works in thefield also gain a great deal of theiranalytical power by having a relativelynarrow scope. For example, ThedaSkocpol’s still classic States andSocial Revolutions not only providesa theory of revolution, but establishesat its outset that it is intended to applyin contexts of politically ambitiousagrarian states that did not experi-ence colonialism.5 To test the validityof the argument, one needs to findcases that fit this standard. In thissense, middle-range theory providesa rigorous answer to the question:what are the outer limits or “reach” of


munist Russia and advanced demo-cratic states, making certain compar-isons inappropriate. On the otherhand, however, middle-range theo-rists do not argue, as some regionalspecialists might, that cross-regionalcomparisons are thus always flawed.

whether and how well a frameworkactually travels.

Middle-range theory, in this sense,offers two specific benefits for schol-ars and students of comparative poli-tics. First, it offers a strategy of build-ing general theory that is not unrealis-tically universal. Second, it offers away of engaging the complexity ofempirical reality that is simply avoidedwith universal claims. Taken together,middle-range theories offer a reason-able “middle road” that in fact haspaved the way for some of the mostproductive, illuminating, and method-ologically rigorous works in compara-tive politics.

Conclusion: Challenges for Middle-range Theory

None of this is to say, however, thatmiddle-range theory does not face itsown set of challenges. In concluding,we can point to two challenges in par-ticular that should be the subject ofattention for scholars of comparativepolitics. First, if scope conditions areso crucial, how do we actually identifythem? With one recent exception,this is a question that has notreceived its fair share of attentionfrom scholars.8 All too often, scopeconditions have the feel that they areinductively generated in an ad hocfashion to describe the empiricalcases that a theory has troubleexplaining. This is clearly insufficient.But, how ought we identify scope con-ditions? To avoid addressing thisissue is to fail to take advantage ofone of the core benefits of middle-range theory.

Second, if middle-range theory repre-sents, in T.H. Marshall’s phrase,“small stepping stones,” should thefield be doing more to aggregate the-ory?9 If so, how? In the end, RobertMerton optimistically believed theaggregation of theory was possible;he awaited the arrival of sociology’s

Einstein. Even if we reject his opti-mism, we can still ask how theprocess of “muddling through” oughtbest to proceed. At a general level, ifwe look at instances of theory aggre-gation in the field, at least two differ-ent strategies appear plausible: one,we might call bridging and the sec-ond, we might call adding. By “bridg-ing,” I refer to instances where schol-ars adopt insights from acrossresearch traditions to generate newinsights. An example of this is seen inthe impressive body of work generat-ed by the “varieties of capitalism”research program.10 Here we see asynthesis between “historical institu-tionalism,” with its emphasis on differ-ent national arrangements of institu-tions, and a “rationalist” focus on themicro-foundations of such nationalconfigurations. As seen in theresearch generated by this program,bridging the findings from differentmiddle-range theories from across dif-ferent research programs clearly isone productive strategy of theoryaggregation.

“Middle-range theory […]

offers […] a strategy of build-

ing general theory that is not

unrealistically universal

[...and...] a way of engaging

the complexity of empirical

reality that is simply avoided

with universal claims.”

Similarly, the strategy of “adding”offers another route of theory aggre-gation. In her work on democratictransition, Ruth Berins Collier synthe-sizes two discrete findings on thedeterminants of democratic transitionthat were generated with differentempirical bases within a singleresearch tradition.11 Scholarship ondemocracy’s third wave, Collier

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Indeed, middle-range theory followsSartori’s equally important but lessnoted call to avoid the problem thathe dubs “logical perfectionism,” inwhich excessive concern with accura-cy of denotation generates a form ofparalysis where one is afraid to sayanything beyond a very narrow andparticular context. The very act ofconceptualization entails abstractionso that core concepts of comparativepolitics such as “corporatism,” “socialmovement,” “welfare state,” or “socialcapital,” at least implicitly, makeclaims about a broader universe ofcases. To act as if one is only narrow-ly talking about an individual nationalcase while simultaneously usingbroad concepts is also fundamentallymisleading. Thus, while sensitive tothe problems of conceptual stretch-ing, middle-range theorists do notremain paralyzed and trapped inempirical settings where a study’sfindings only implicitly suggest broad-er conclusions. Rather, a middle-range theorist explicitly examines

“[…] two different strategies

[of theory aggregation]

appear plausible: one, we

might call bridging and the

second, we might call

adding.”


notes, emphasizes the role of elitesand the literature on the first wave ofdemocracy emphasizes the role of theworking class. In a carefully craftedset of comparisons across two cen-turies of democratic transition acrosstwo continents, she identifies multiplepathways to democracy that enrichour understanding of how democracyis created. By adding the mid-rangetheories of two different literatureswithin the same research program,she generates broader theoreticalclaims.

2 Merton, Robert. 1968. “OnSociological Theories of the MiddleRange” Social Theory and SocialStructure. New York: Free Press, pp.39-72.

3 Merton, Robert. ibid., p. 39.

4 Fish, Steven. 2006. DemocracyDerailed in Russia: The Failure ofOpen Politics. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

5 Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States andSocial Revolutions. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, pp. 33-42.

6 The importance of specifying scopeconditions flows from the assumptionof unit homogeneity that mostmethodologies presume. By identify-ing the relevant “universe of study”where the assumption is expected tohold, the scope conditions can beidentified. For a discussion see:Bennett, Andrew and Alexander L.George. 2005. Case Studies andTheory Development in the SocialSciences. Cambridge: MIT Press.

7 Sartori, Giovanni. 1970. “ConceptMisformation in Comparative Politics”American Political Science Review 64(4): 1033-1053.

8 Mahoney, James and Gary Goertz.2004. “The Possibility Principle:Choosing Negative Cases inQualitative Research” AmericanPolitical Science Review 98(4): 653-670.

9 Marshall, T.H. 1963. Sociology atthe Crossroads. London: Heinemann,pp. 3-24.

10 Hall, Peter and David Soskice(eds.). 2001. Varieties of Capitalism:The Institutional Foundations ofComparative Advantage. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

11 Collier, Ruth Berins. 1999. Pathstoward Democracy: The WorkingClass and Elites in Western Europeand South America. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Whether individual social scientistschoose as their mission to strive foruniversal generalizations that providecovering laws of politics, mid-rangetheories that explain limited classesof events, or instead pursue domain-specific explanations of importantphenomena matters not at all forwhether such covering laws exist andmatters only modestly for whetherwe, as a community, discover suchlaws or conclude that they do notexist. If they exist – and enough uni-versal generalizations have, in myview, been identified already to giveme confidence that more will be dis-covered – then recurrent patternsacross studies that seek domain-spe-cific, heterogeneous findings will bediscerned and underlying generalprinciples will be discovered. It is notat all clear to me whether the mostefficient path to the discovery of suchlaws of politics follows from a directsearch for them, from mid-range the-

“Middle-range theory offers a

route to generalization built

upon an approach that is

self-conscious about evi-

dence, concepts, and

methodology.”

In short, middle-range theory offersthe potential building blocks towardsbroader theoretical generalization.The idea that scholars of comparativepolitics must choose between makingsweeping theoretical statements ormere descriptive summaries of indi-vidual cases is thus a false choice.Middle-range theory offers a route togeneralization built upon an approachthat is self-conscious about evidence,concepts, and methodology. While thebold single answers of the hedgehogare at times seductive, the fox offersa more realistic and promising routefor scientific progress.

Notes

1 Berlin, Isaiah. 1953. The Hedgehogand the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’sView of History, London: Weidenfeld& Nicolson.

Bruce Bueno deMesquitaNew York University and

Hoover Institution,

Stanford [email protected]

Complements inthe Quest forUnderstandingComparativePolitics


orizing, or from the opportunity toweave together the volume of find-ings from domain-specific, regional,country, or locale-based studies. I saythis as someone who, having begunhis career as a field researcher con-cerned with strategies of oppositionparties in state-level governmentswithin India, is now inclined to seekuniversal generalizations by blendingtogether formal models, statisticalanalyses of cross-sectional, time-series data, and detailed case studiesof specific phenomena in specificplaces at specific times.

tus, occupation, income and so forth,factors that exist in all societies at alltimes. Kanchan Chandra (2004), inoffering a general theory of patronagepolitics coupled with detailed empiri-cal investigations in the Indian con-text, has successfully done just that.She has combined general principlesof politics in a contextually informedway and found that doing so facilitiesexplaining a central political phenom-enon. Joshua Tucker (2006) hasdone much the same in testing uni-versal generalizations within thenuanced context of East Europeanpost-communist politics.

One has only to look at the worldaround us to see that there istremendous heterogeneity. This hasled some scholars to conclude thatthere are no covering laws governingcore phenomena, but rather thatspace-specific and time-specificexplanations are required. Historyhas shown, however, that such aninference is likely to be unwarrantedif exclusively based on the observa-tion of temporal or spatial hetero-geneity. After all, this very sort ofobservation-based argument ledastronomers and astrologers for mil-lennia before Isaac Newton to con-clude that the motion of objects var-ied uniquely by place so that theobserved path of Mars in the nightsky looked nothing at all like the pathof the Earth’s moon, Venus, otherplanets, or the stars, not to mentionobjects like falling stones and air-borne birds on Earth. Once Newtonbuilt on Galileo’s earlier work by

developing a theory of mechanicsand introduced the idea of a universalforce – gravity – the observed hetero-geneity in planetary motion seemedreadily explicable. With Einstein’sgeneral theory of relativity, gravitybecame more broadly generalized asforces in the space-time continuumthat covered other seeming sourcesof heterogeneity. It is, I believe, nodifferent – albeit more complicatedand more difficult – with regard tohuman interaction. It is more difficultbecause non-living objects like mole-cules may interact but, unlikehumans, they do not interact strategi-cally, planning their responses to theactions of others so as to have thingsturn out as well for themselves aspossible. And while the problem ofdiscerning the general laws governinghuman interaction is difficult, there isample evidence that political sciencehas had some successes in thisregard.

No one today would argue thatobjects move differently in Katmanduor Mexico City than they do inManhattan and yet we know that, allelse being equal, objects fall faster tothe ground in Katmandu and MexicoCity than in Manhattan. We haveresolved this apparent heterogeneity– which influences, for instance, howsports records are judged – by recog-nizing that factors like atmosphericpressure influence the manifestationof the force of gravity in differentplaces. I believe this same principleof identifying generalizations – rela-tions among variables – to sort outapparent heterogeneity can beextended, and is being successfullyextended, to social phenomena. Forexample, many India specialists – myown regional specialty – concludethat caste, a nearly unique Hinduphenomenon, is a central domain-and-context-specific factor shapingpolitics in India. Yet caste can be sub-sumed as a set of values for generalvariables concerned with social sta-

“The argument for or against

universal generalizations

must rise or fall on the basis

of evidence.”

The argument for or against universalgeneralizations must rise or fall onthe basis of evidence. Those – if any– who deny the possibility of universalgeneralizations must confront thechallenge that such generalizationshave been articulated and supportedby logic and evidence. The identifica-tion of even one such generalizationbelies the claim that they do not exist.Whether anyone actually claims thatuniversal generalizations about poli-tics are not possible is doubtful. But inthe event there are those who holdthis belief, as distinct from those whobelieve that the best way to under-stand social phenomena is to exam-ine specific places or contexts indetail, let me offer examples of uni-versal generalizations about politics.

Kenneth Arrow’s (1951) generalimpossibility theorem proves as amatter of logic that, other than una-nimity or dictatorship, it is not possi-ble, given a set of defined constraints,

“[...] enough universal gener-

alizations have, in my view,

been identified already to

give me confidence that

more will be discovered [...]”


to construct a voting rule that ensuresthat the candidates or policies chosencorrespond with the preferences ofthe voters or choosers. Duncan Black(1958) proved that if issues are politi-cally constrained to be unidimension-al, preferences are constrained to besingle-peaked, and outcomes areconstrained to require a majority vote,then the preference of the medianvoter determines the outcome. Thefindings by Black and Arrow, and oth-ers as well, stimulated significantextensions such as the McKelvey-Schofield theorems (1976, 1978,1979). These theorems about theinherent policy heterogeneity impliedwhen issues are multi-dimensional,helped stimulate a body of researchon how agenda-setting authority orinstitutional constraints influenceimportant policy outcomes regardlessof history or culture, although bothhistory and culture may shape theinstitutions applied to decision makingin specific places and contexts. Thebody of theory I just mentioned pro-vides a foundation for understandingwhy it is that political outcomes arereadily manipulated by political elitesand why this is so regardless of howdemocratic the polity is and regard-less of its history, culture, etc.

Kenneth Shepsle and Michael Laver(1994), Laver and Norman Schofield(1990), and others have elucidatedmany of the ways in which gover-nance institutions induce policy out-comes. Gary Cox (1997) and RogerCongleton and Birgitta Swedenborg(2006) have further generalized theseresults by showing in detail how theseemingly endless variety of votingrules around the world operate, usinga small set of general principles to layout the empirical consequences ofthese rules. We know theoretically,and observe empirically, for instance,that single-member district, first-past-the-post electoral rules nearly guar-antee that there are just two competi-tive parties on a district by district

basis wherever such voting rulesarise (e.g., the United States, India,the United Kingdom). We know thatproportional representation systemsvirtually guarantee a multi-party sys-tem, encourage coalition govern-ments, and produce more volatile pol-icy outcomes over time than do first-past-the-post systems (e.g.,Germany, Israel). These principleshold universally although the nuancesof their implications may be influ-enced by contextual factors.

choosing and maintaining leaders –including rules in non-democratic set-tings – shape such seemingly diversephenomena as the quality of drinkingwater, the longevity in office that lead-ers experience, the flow of immigrantsand emigrants, educational attainmentlevels, variation in per capita income,war-fighting policies and war-fightingsuccess or failure, predictability oruncertainty in economic growth rates,and the extent to which corruptionand kleptocracy is experienced.Pradeep Chhibber and IrfanNooruddin (2004) demonstrate howBueno de Mesquita et al.’s selec-torate theory helps explain variation inpublic goods provision across Indianstates much as David Stasavage(2005) has shown how this same the-ory helps explain variation in educa-tion spending in Africa.

The evidence favors the view thatthere are universal generalizationsabout politics, that their discovery isoccurring at an increasing rate, andthat confidence in the reliability ofsuch generalizations is fostered bythe blending of alternative methodolo-gies for assessing evidence and fer-reting out empirical regularities.General theory without detailed, con-textually nuanced approaches toempirical testing is unlikely to proveconvincing to specialists becausesuch studies fail to demonstrate thatthe details on the ground match thecausal mechanism of the theories.Correlation, after all, is not causation.By the same token, nuanced country-specific or region-specific studieswithout some general theoreticalfoundation and falsifiable hypothesesare unlikely by themselves to proveconvincing to generalists becausesuch studies tend to suffer from inat-tentiveness to selection effects,including particularly sampling on thedependent variable. It follows, then,that progress in understanding politicsis most likely to arise through a livelyand frank interaction between “gener-

“The evidence favors the

view that there are universal

generalizations about poli-

tics, that their discovery is

occurring at an increasing

rate, and that confidence in

the reliability of such gener-

alizations is fostered by the

blending of alternative

methodologies [...]”

Adam Przeworski et al. (2000) haveshown that democratic societies withper capita incomes above a thresholdlevel (about $6,000 per capita) areimmune from coups and remain sta-ble and democratic while democraticpolities below that income cut-pointoften backslide into dictatorship.Przeworski et al. have demonstratedthat this important empirical regularitydoes not seem to vary across spaceor (correcting for inflation) acrosstime. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita et al.(2003) provide a general theoreticalexplanation for Przeworski et al.’sfinding and also demonstrate theoreti-cally and empirically how rules for


alists” and “specialists,” each comple-menting the skills of the other andeach reminding the other of the limi-tations of their approach.

References

Arrow, Kenneth. 1951. Social Choiceand Individual Values. New York:John Wiley.

Black, Duncan. 1958. The Theory ofCommittees and Elections.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, AlastairSmith, Randolph M. Siverson, JamesD. Morrow. 2003. The Logic ofPolitical Survival. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.

Chandra, Kanchan. 2004. WhyEthnic Parties Succeed: Patronageand Ethnic Headcounts in India.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Chhibber, Pradeep and IrfanNooruddin. 2004. “Do Party SystemsCount? The Number of Parties andGovernment Performance in theIndian States.” Comparative PoliticalStudies 37 (March): 152-87.

Congleton, Roger and BirgittaSwedenborg (eds.) 2006. DemocraticConstitutional Design and PublicPolicy: Analysis and Evidence.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Cox, Gary. 1997. Making VotesCount: Strategic Coordination in theWorld’s Electoral Systems.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Laver, Michael and Kenneth Shepsle,eds. 1990. Cabinet Ministers andParliamentary Government. NewYork: Cambridge University Press.Laver, Michael and NormanSchofield. 1990. Multiparty

Should the pursuit of universal gener-alizations motivate research in com-parative politics, or should we strivefor more modest arguments that arecircumscribed by time and space? Myposition on this question has changedover the course of my academiccareer. I started my career as some-one who believed in “big,” not bound-ed generalizations, with belief in thisinstance reflecting my reading (cour-tesy of graduate school socialization)of where comparative inquiry bothshould and could go. Thus, in mywork at the time, I focused on anissue common to all polities - that is,leadership succession - and usedboth statistical analyses and casestudies to assess the policy conse-quences of succession processes ina variety of contexts, including subna-tional and national political units, aswell as democratic and communistregimes.1 Some of my findings werein keeping with an ambitious defini-tion of generalizability - for example,the consistent role of succession as amajor source of policy innovation,and the role of regime-type as anexcellent explanatory substitute forthe names of both the countries andthe subunits under investigation.

At the same time, however, I cameface-to-face with the limits of myresearch. Regime-type was too“crowded” a category to yield manyuseful and certainly nuanced insightsinto such vital questions as why,when, how, and to what degree suc-

Government: The Politics of Coalitionin Europe. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

McKelvey, Richard. 1976.“Intransitivities in MultidimensionalVoting Models and Some Implicationsfor Agenda Control.” Journal ofEconomic Theory. 12: 472-482.

McKelvey, Richard. 1979. “GeneralConditions for Global Intransitivities inFormal Voting Models.”Econometrica. 47: 1085-1112.

Przeworski, Adam, Michael Alvarez,José Antonio Cheibub, and FernandoLimongi. 2000. Democracy andDevelopment: Political Institutionsand Material Well Being in the World,1950-1990. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Schofield, Norman. 1978. “Instabilityof Simple Dynamic Games.” Reviewof Economic Studies. 45: 575-594.

Stasavage, David. 2005. “Democracyand Education Spending in Africa,”American Journal of Political Science,49(2): 343-358.

Tucker, Joshua A. 2006. RegionalEconomic Voting: Russia, Poland,Hungary, and Slovakia: 1990-1999.New York: Cambridge UniversityPress.

The Geography ofGeneralization

Valerie BunceCornell [email protected]


cession related to policy change.Moreover, my study lacked importantfeatures that would help my resultstravel - for example, long spans oftime, a broad range of public policies,interviews with participants in succes-sion processes (Brezhnev, for somereason, did not grant me an audi-ence), cases drawn from what wasthen termed the “Third World,” com-munist polities outside the SovietUnion and Eastern Europe, and non-communist authoritarian systems.Finally, though I used two case stud-ies to explore the causal relationshipbetween struggles for power and poli-cy change, I began to wonderwhether these case studies wereequal to the enormous explanatoryresponsibilities I had given them.

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rule, the origins of internal wars andthe effectiveness of international inter-ventions in these conflicts, and, mostrecently, the impact of Americandemocracy promotion abroad (a list oftopics that looks suspiciously likelong-term preparation for analyzingcontemporary Iraq!). It was not simplythat I learned many useful things fromresearch that questioned the valueand validity of universal generaliza-tions. Where, for example, wouldscholarship on nationalism be withoutBenedict Anderson’s, ImaginedCommunities2 - a study that violatedmost of the tenets of well-designedcomparative analysis? Nor was itmerely that the issues of interest tome required diversification ofapproaches, along with assumptionsabout the “width” of possible and plau-sible generalizability. It was also thatthe collapse of communism and com-munist states from 1989-1992 hadcontradictory messages insofar as thegoals and strategies of research wereconcerned.

On the one hand, the region became,I admit, far more interesting, primarilybecause it began to generate newissues that were both exciting to ana-lyze and closely linked to dynamics inother parts of the world. For example,while earlier it had been a stretch toimport such concepts as pluralismand incrementalism into the field ofcommunist studies, it was far easierafter the communist experiment todeploy the rich concepts and theoriesdeveloped elsewhere in the study ofnationalism, secession, civil wars,state-building, democratization, andthe political economy of marketreforms. Moreover, a small number ofcases ballooned into numerous ones,given the immense geographicalrange of the Third Wave and neoliber-al reforms and given as well the rapid-fire multiplication of states within thepostcommunist region from 1991-1992 (from nine to twenty-seven).

At the same time, however, the trans-formation of the region provided spe-cialists with some wonderful opportu-nities they had long been denied: achance to do fieldwork in a region thatpresented, from the vantage point ofboth statistical studies and compara-tive case analysis, a nearly ideal com-bination of similarities, yet differencesin politics, economics, and culture.Indeed, in comparison with LatinAmerica (a region also featuring alarge number of states, marketreforms, and democratic transitions),the postcommunist area features bothgreater similarities in antecedentregimes and greater diversity in socio-economic development, culture, andregime forms. Thus, specialists on thepostcommunist region have under-standably gravitated towards compar-isons within their region of expertise.They have also tended to follow acounter-cyclical pattern insofar as thefashions of political science are con-cerned. They have become, in someways, more area specialists than theyever were - though, it is important torecognize, in the absence of the oftenassumed trade-offs, such as becom-ing less comparative in scope andless political “sciencey” in methods.Specialists in postcommunist politics,therefore, are a fine example of whythe attack on area studies has mistak-enly conflated local knowledge withmethodological backwardness.

“The geographical and intel-

lectual borders of the com-

munist and post-communist

region […] have been dereg-

ulated at precisely the same

time that opportunities for the

development of local knowl-

edge have expanded. This

dynamic has enriched com-

parative inquiry but compli-

cated the issue of generaliz-

ability.”

My ambivalence about our ability togeneralize in comparative politics onlydeepened once I moved on to somenew issues, such as explaining thecollapse of regimes and states, varia-tions in transitions from authoritarian

“[...] the width of generaliz-

ability varies according to the

issue at hand.”

The geographical and intellectual bor-ders of the communist and post-com-munist region, therefore, have beenderegulated at precisely the sametime that opportunities for the devel-opment of local knowledge haveexpanded. This dynamic has enriched


dense term that begs far more ques-tions than it answers.

Allow me to conclude with two impli-cations that can be drawn from thisdiscussion about the role of general-izability in comparative research. Oneis that modesty about the value ofone’s approach and the transportabili-ty of one’s conclusions is probablythe best policy. This is in direct con-trast to the easy arrogance of ayoung scholar certain of the powersof her methods, naïve about the limitsof time, knowledge, and all researchdesigns, and ever-ready as a “realsocial scientist” to critique area schol-arship (which I did in the 1970s and1980s). Modesty, moreover, is not justa realistic strategy, given both the lim-its and the methodological diversity ofpolitical science. It is also a policythat avoids some of the pitfalls ofthose comparative studies thatassume universality, but without thenecessary data to explore that possi-bility, or that frame the issue at handin ways that may be more testable,but that may also be far removedfrom the actual puzzle of interest,possibly trivial, and reliant on ques-tionable data.

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comparative inquiry but complicatedthe issue of generalizability. Thestudy of democratization is a case inpoint. It is true that we are now onsafer ground with respect to drawingsome nearly universal generalizationsabout the Third Wave, especially withrespect to the central role of elites inboth democratization and de-democ-ratization.3 Moreover, even the pur-portedly “distinctive” role of massmobilization in supporting democrati-zation in the communist and post-communist area may not be as singu-lar as we once thought - as a recentstudy by Peter Ackerman and AdrianKaratnycky highlights.4

However, at the same time, there doseem to be distinctive aspects ofdemocratization in the post-commu-nist region - for example, the payoffsfor democracy in that part of theworld of combining democratizationwith neoliberal reforms and of carry-ing out a sharp versus more moder-ate break with the authoritarian past.

research assistance, and access todata; the goals of uncovering globalpatterns and understanding causalityin a deep way are equally desirableand defensible; and different puzzlesdictate different methodologies, a dif-ferent array of needed data, and dif-ferent potential for generalizationacross time and space. Thus, like allthe social sciences, comparative poli-tics seems to produce the most usefulknowledge when analysts followdiverse research trajectories. Re-maining wedded to one approach isunderstandable in the case of individ-ual scholars, given sunk intellectualcapital, although this may not be allthat defensible, since it may imply acertain intellectual rigidity, a lack ofappreciation for other types of work,and a tendency to have methods dic-tate puzzle selection rather than vice-versa. However, while one maydebate that position, less debatable, Ithink, is that the hegemony of oneapproach within the field as a wholewould be disastrous for the accumu-lation of knowledge. We are onlysocial scientists.

“[...] modesty about the value

of one's approach and the

transportability of one's con-

clusions is probably the best

policy.”

The second implication is related: weneed to hedge our methodologicalbets and thereby resist the temptationof taking a consistent stance onwhether universal generalizations areeither possible or useful goals. Part ofthe argument here is that there arelimitations on time, expertise,

“[...] comparative politics

seems to produce the most

useful knowledge when ana-

lysts follow diverse research

trajectories.”

Put differently, there are costs andbenefits associated with everyresearch strategy. Each approachrelies upon posing and operationaliz-ing questions in certain ways, whileignoring or rejecting others; collectingcertain kinds of data and organizingthese data in certain ways, while dis-missing, either consciously or uncon-sciously, a variety of alternatives; anddevising research designs that are in

“[...] different puzzles dictate

different methodologies, [...]

and different potential for

generalization [...]”

What we have discovered, therefore,is that the width of generalizabilityvaries according to the issue at hand.Put differently, region seems to mat-ter, but only sometimes. As a result,the trick for many analysts, whatevertheir methodology or their area ofspecialization, has become one of notjust demarcating the spatial and tem-poral boundaries of generalizability,but also uncovering the reasonsbehind the particular boundaries thatperiodically assert themselves. Likeregime type in my earlier work onsuccession, region is a variable-


analysis that controls for a wide vari-ety of plausible influences (includingprobabilities attached to the geo-graphical movement of democracy)that we can make this argument withmuch certainty. However, as theauthors readily admit, their study haslittle to say about how the intra-regional movement of democracyactually happens. Is this a matter ofcommon responses on the part ofsimilar regimes to some commoninfluences, the impact of a powerfulinternational actor that supportsdemocracy and focuses on specificregions (the “Putin/Chávez” charac-terization of the United States in thepostcommunist region), or the intra-regional spread of transnational net-works supporting transitions to demo-cratic government?

keeping with those decisions aboutpuzzles and data and therebyembracing specific assumptionsabout the potential geographical andhistorical width of the conclusions thatcan and should be drawn. In thissense, research methods - and theirassumptions about generalizability -always involve divisions of labor.

“In comparative politics, [...]

there seems to be a division

of labor: of issues, methods,

and the geography of gener-

alization.”Let me conclude these observationswith one example of the utility, if notnecessity, of methodological pluralismand, thus, flexibility on the question ofgeneralization. This is an issue thatlies at the center of debates aboutrecent democratization: the global dif-fusion of democratic governance. It issafe to argue that the global wave ofdemocratization since the mid-1970sfeatures a pattern characteristic ofinternational diffusion dynamics. Arecent study by Daniel Brinks andMichael Coppedge provides strongsupport for the argument that democ-racy seems to diffuse within regions.5While some might rush to argue thatthis is merely common sense (assome critics of statistical work areoften quick to note), the fact is that itis only through a complex statistical

Symposium

ble claim in support of “big” general-izability, follow-up studies that areinterested in the why and how ofdemocratic diffusion are likely to bemore bounded in their conclusions byboth time and space. In comparativepolitics, therefore, there seems to bea division of labor: of issues, meth-ods, and the geography of general-ization.

Notes

1 Bunce, Valerie. 1981. Do NewLeaders Make a Difference?Executive Succession and PublicPolicy Under Capitalism andSocialism. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press.

2 Anderson, Benedict. 1991.Imagined Communities: Reflectionson the Origins and Spread ofNationalism. London: Verso.

3 Bunce, Valerie. 2000. “ComparativeDemocratization: Big and BoundedGeneralizations.” ComparativePolitical Studies 33(6-7): 703-734.

4 Ackerman, Peter and AdrianKaratnycky. “How Freedom is Won:From Civic Resistance to DurableDemocracy.” Retrieved December 1,2005 from: www.freedomhouse.org

5 Brinks, Daniel and MichaelCoppedge. 2006. “Diffusion is noIllusion: Neighbor Emulation in theThird Wave of Democracy.”Comparative Political Studies 39(4):463-489. A similar argument could bemade by another recent study—inthis case, of the influence of Ame-rican democracy promotion on demo-cratic performance around the worldfrom 1990-2003. See: Finkel, Steven,Aníbal Pérez-Liñan, MitchellSeligson, and Dinorah Azpuru. 2005.“Effects of U.S. Foreign Assistanceon Democracy Building: Results of aCross-National Quantitative Study.”Final Report, USAID, Version no. 22.

“Each approach relies upon

posing and operationalizing

questions in certain ways,

[...] collecting certain kinds of

data […] devising research

designs […and...] embracing

specific assumptions about

the potential geographical

and historical width of the

conclusions [...]”

The answer to this question is asimportant as the answer to the ques-tion concerning the patterns of demo-cratic diffusion. Moreover, it is equallyhard to construct. However, there thesimilarities end. It is fair to assumethat explaining how intra-regional dif-fusion of democracy occurs willrequire very different methods thanthe ones employed by Brinks andCoppedge. These methods mightinclude, for example, sophisticatednetwork analyses and some intensivecase studies that map the internation-al dispersion of democracy assis-tance, democratic norms, and effec-tive liberal oppositions. Moreover, Iwould predict that, while the Brinksand Coppedge study makes a plausi-


We political scientists never seem totire of discourse and debate abouttheory. While Ph.D. programs inEconomics (or even Sociology) offera first-year theory curriculum that isrelatively consistent across depart-ments – with common topics andmethods, a standard sequence, andeven the same texts and materials1 –there is no equivalent orthodoxy inpolitical science. Our scope andmethods offerings are a potpourri ofapproaches: large-n methods, smalln-methods, and case study techni-ques; behavioral approaches, analyti-cal approaches, and narrative appro-aches (even analytical narrative ap-proaches); description, explanation,and prescription. We don’t agree onwhat should be given priority. Even ifwe were to give priority, say, to expla-nation, we don’t always agree onwhat it means to explain something.

Because political science is an ele-phant with so many distinct anatomi-cal features, it should not be surpris-ing that theory debates erupt fromtime to time with debating pointsoften orthogonal to one another. Incomparative politics, with so diversea set of substantive topics on themenu, the issue of theory is especial-ly complicated. It thus provides a use-ful test-bed for examining variousperspectives.

The present symposium on universalversus middle-range theory mightseem, in light of this diversity, to offer

Symposium

Kenneth A.ShepsleHarvard University

[email protected].

edu

Arguments aboutTheory… Again

issue. In the remainder of this briefessay, I hope to make the case forthe claim that middle-range theoriesare not at odds with those that tendtoward universal principles – that thepresent symposium in effect poses afalse dichotomy. I will do so bydescribing a body of research inwhich middle-range and universaltheorizing exist side by side, cross-fertilizing one another. Whether suchpeaceful and productive coexistencecan arise and sustain itself in com-parative politics more generally is anissue best left to the reader’s deter-mination.

“On the evidence from other

fields, we should not reject

the possibility of universal

principles of politics out of

hand.”

hardly any scope for argument at all.How can so much diversity in com-parative politics be captured by anycommon set of principles? Why both-er aspiring to universal theory if eachprospective observation seems somuch a product of distinct, idiosyn-cratic, indeed unique, factors? Whywould one ever expect the politics ofChad to resemble the politics ofChicago? The topography (lay) of thecomparative politics playing field(land), I shall argue, is not as irregu-lar (un-level) as might appear.

Diverse and complex phenomena,whether the mass and motion of thephysical world or the wide assortmentof species in the biological world, donot constitute domains incompatiblewith some scope for common andgeneral explanations. So, for the pur-poses of my argument, let’s put toone side the issue of whether thecomplexity and diversity evident incomparative politics undermine effortsat universal explanation. On the evi-dence from other fields, we should notreject the possibility of universal prin-ciples of politics out of hand.

Perhaps, however, middle-range theo-ries, which I take to mean theories tai-lored to particular settings and con-texts, offer a more sensible programof research. Chad, after all, is differentfrom Chicago, and those differencesshould be recognized and takenaccount of at the outset. I don’t thinkthis necessarily follows; and evenwhen it does, it does not settle the

“I hope to make the case for

the claim that middle-range

theories are not at odds with

those that tend toward uni-

versal principles - that the

present symposium in effect

poses a false dichotomy. ”

There is a certain irony in the fact thatsome exceptionally good comparativepolitical science has been conductedwithin the research program ofAmerican politics. In this field themost studied institution is the legisla-ture, and the most studied of these isthe US Congress. Beginning in the1960s, political anthropologiststrekked to Washington to observe thenative species in their naturalhabitat.2 Taking Woodrow Wilson’sepigram to heart – that “Congress insession is Congress on public exhibi-tion, whilst Congress in committee-rooms is Congress at work” – thesescholars focused especially on thecommittees of the House ofRepresentatives. The earliest studieswere of the powerful “exclusive” com-


does not say that something is truealways and everywhere. It says thatsomething is true if certain conditionsare satisfied. It is universal only in thesense that it is always true if thesespecified conditions hold. So, let usbe clear and not distracted by thosewho would ridicule a “universal” claimby characterizing it as saying some-thing silly like politics in Chad is justlike politics in Chicago.

mittees – Appropriations, Rules, andWays & Means – and the researchproducts of Fenno (1966), Robinson(1963), and Manley (1965), respec-tively, read just like anthropologicalmonographs.3 From these scholarlyorigins, a vast industry of committeestudies emerged.4 Much that wasreported was unique and special toeach research site, not unlike thereports of naturalists about diversespecies in different geographic set-tings, of anthropologists about prac-tices in different tribes, or of area spe-cialists about the history, values, andbehaviors observed in different politi-cal systems.

At approximately the same time, in aparallel universe it often seems,another group of scholars was study-ing “committees,” but not in any natu-ral setting. Instead, these scholarstook a committee to be a generic col-lection of individuals (usually odd innumber) with a decision to make.They often began, “Assume a set N ={1, 2…., n} of individuals (the commit-tee) that must choose among alterna-tives A = {x, y, z, w…} according to adecision rule that requires a quota qof votes to come to a decision.” Theirresearch program tended toward thesearch for universal principles abouthow individual committee membersand the collective committee wouldbehave in these choice settings.

Among the more famous “universalprinciples” are Arrow’s ImpossibilityTheorem on individual rationality andsocial irrationality and Black’s MedianVoter Theorem on majority rule equi-librium. The former, applying to aworld in which committee membersmay hold any transitive preferencesover the alternatives in A, demon-strates that no decision rule satisfyingseveral clearly stated but generalrequirements can assure a strict col-lective ranking of the alternatives in A(Arrow, 1951). In particular, simplemajority rule is often associated with

a collective preference cycle amongalternatives – that is, no strict collec-tive ordering of the alternatives nec-essarily emerges. This “rational(wo)man/irrational society” phenome-non is sometimes termed Condorcet’sParadox.

“[…] a universal principle […]

does not say that something

is true always and every-

where. It says that some-

thing is true if certain condi-

tions are satisfied.”

Black’s median voter theorem makesthe following (conditional) universalclaim: whenever a committee of theRevenue Ministry of Chad sets a taxrate on a commodity in a manner thatlooks like majority decision making, itwill share much in common with theRevenue Committee of the ChicagoCity Council setting a property taxrate – viz., if preferences among thedeciders are single-peaked, then thetax rate preferred by the median com-mittee member will prevail in eachcase. Universal claims in this caseare about the operating characteris-tics of committees. Whatever else isdifferent between Chad and Chicago,committees in both places operatingaccording to majority rule with single-peaked preferences will share thiscommon tendency toward medianoutcomes.5

Second, in the context of committeesin the US Congress, soakers andpokers and analytical types, thoughemploying altogether different tools,

“Among the more famous

‘universal principles’ are

Arrow's Impossibility

Theorem on individual ration-

ality and social irrationality

and Black's Median Voter

Theorem on majority rule

equilibrium.”

Black’s result says that if preferencesover A are restricted in a precisesense – the alternatives in A are uni-dimensional and the preferences ofthe members of N are single-peaked– then majority rule will not cycle(Black, 1958). In particular, for unidi-mensional alternatives if preferencesare symmetric and single-peaked,then the transitive pairwise prefer-ences of the committee member withthe median peak (median most-pre-ferred point) will also be the collectivepairwise preferences of the commit-tee.

Putting the two research traditions ofthe last few paragraphs cheek by jowl– the soaker-and-poker students ofempirical committees and the analyti-cal students of generic committees –I want to make several points. First,the analytical students have pro-duced “universal” principles. Butnotice that a universal principle – atheorem – is a relationship betweenassumptions and consequences. It

20 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2Symposium

techniques, and research strategies,found value in one another’sresearch programs. Quantitative, his-torical, and participant-observationresearch provided analytical typeswith a contextual frame that suggest-ed appropriate modeling strategiesand targets of opportunity.

For example, information about therules by which committee proposalsare taken up by the parent legislatureallowed modelers to derive resultsabout the agenda power of somecommittees (whose products arefreely amended on the floor accord-ing to an open rule on amendments)compared to others (whose productscome to the floor under a closed ruleprohibiting amendments). Theseagenda-power results, in turn,allowed congressional specialists tomake some comparative sense of theways in which different committees(differently) went about their business– what Fenno (1973) called a com-mittee’s strategic premises. Studentsof individual committees (Fenno,Robinson, Manley), students of thecomparative study of committees(Fenno), and analytical students ofcommittees – some looking a lot likearea-studies scholars, others lookinglike middle-range comparative theo-rists, and still others looking like theo-rists inclined toward general (andgeneric) results – all managed tooperate in a synthetic manner. It wasnot middle-range theory versus uni-versal theory, but rather middle-rangetheory and universal theory.

A third point has to do with intuition.Many of the theorems of Newtonianmechanics entail frictionless surfacesand atmospheres. They literally applyonly to objects moving in a vacuum,not to those shot from a cannon ordriven on a highway. They are univer-sal principles (as long as the object ismoving slower than the speed oflight) – they consist of theoremsderived from assumptions – but their

assumptions may not apply to manyof the circumstances we typicallyencounter in the real world.Nevertheless, they are suggestive intwo respects. First, many real-worldsituations may approximate theNewtonian conditions – that is, theirimplications, subject to engineeringcorrections for friction, do in fact tellus things about the real world. Applesfall from a tree in a manner roughlydescribed by Newtonian laws, even ifleaves do not. Second, theories thatentail universal principles are enginesof discovery. A theory, a rich one atany rate, will have many implicationsabout subjects not held clearly inmind by the founding theorist. Thetheory of agenda and veto power in ageneric committee, when enrichedwith the substantive details of a reallegislature like the US House, iscapable of generating novel implica-tions about campaign finance, lobby-ing, the pork barrel, congressionalcareers, and a host of other phenom-ena not contemplated by the originalformulation.

Teune (1970) long ago told us) andmiddle-range theories work hand inhand. But to portray practitioners ofthese two crafts as adversaries ratherthan allies is to fail to appreciate thecomparative advantage (pun intend-ed) of each and the complementari-ties they bring to the table. “My wayor the highway” debates – universalversus middle-range theory, for exam-ple – produce more heat than light.

References

Arrow, Kenneth A. 1951. SocialChoice and Individual Values. NewYork: Wiley.

Black, Duncan. 1958. The Theory ofCommittees and Elections.Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Fenno, Richard F. 1966. The Powerof the Purse. Boston: Little-Brown.

______________. 1973.Congressmen in Committees. Boston:Little-Brown.

______________. 1978. Home Style.Boston: Little-Brown.

Manley, John F. 1965. The Politics ofFinance. Boston: Little-Brown.

Mas-Colell, Andreu, MichaelWhinston, and Jerry Green. 1995.Microeconomic Theory. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic ofCollective Action. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.

Przeworski, Adam and Henry Teune.1970. The Logic of ComparativeSocial Inquiry. New York: Wiley-Interscience.

Robinson, James A. 1963. The HouseRules Committee. Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill.

“[…] to portray practitioners

of [universal and middle-

range theories] as adver-

saries rather than allies is to

fail to appreciate the compar-

ative advantage (pun intend-

ed) of each and the comple-

mentarities they bring to the

table.”

I do not mean to sound like aPollyanna in suggesting that universaltheories (the ones without propernouns in them, as Przeworski and

21APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 Book Review

Notes

1 In the standard graduate sequencein microeconomics, for example, oneof the most widely used texts at thetop departments is Mas-Colell,Whinston, and Green (1995).

2 Their “methodology,” subsequentlytermed soaking and poking, is elo-quently described in the epilogue ofFenno (1978). A later generationtrekked home to the constituencies ofpoliticians in order to observe them intheir other natural habitat – the stateor district.

3 Fenno’s weighed in at 700 pages,hardly a monograph.

4 Some continued the participant-observation approach, but others tookan historical form while still otherswere quantitative studies. In short,there was methodological hetero-geneity in this research program, withevery club in the bag used in onestudy or another.

5 The example in the text may sug-gest that universal theories may onlyapply to institutions common in “con-solidated” democracies, whereasmuch of comparative politics is con-cerned with a world of contested insti-tutions and more fluid politics.However, I could have appealed toother generic theoretical results –say, Olson’s “logic of collectiveaction” (Olson, 1965) – to suggestthat attempts to mobilize reformmovements to eliminate incumbentregimes, whether in Chad orChicago, must overcome the difficul-ties of organizing collective action.

Scholars who take seriously the ambi-tion embodied in the label politicalscience sometimes claim that our dis-

cipline has the capacity to predict thefuture course of events. If analystscan uncover general laws of politicsand draw on thorough contextualknowledge of the relevant antecedentconditions, they should indeed beable to make strong probabilistic fore-casts. For instance, the median-votertheorem should allow them to antici-pate the positioning of political partiesbefore competitive elections, whiledemocratic peace theory should stip-ulate the conditions that precludewarfare.

Philip Tetlock’s outstanding assess-ment of Expert Political Judgmentpours a bucket of cold water on theseambitions. Through an impressivelycareful and even-handed investiga-tion, the author demonstrates thatacademics and other well-trainedobservers have a disappointinglyweak forecasting record. Experts withimpressive scholarly credentials anda wealth of substantive experienceare not much better at predicting thefuture than the “dart-throwing chimp”that randomly chooses one of theoptions into which Tetlock groupspotential developments. And theseexperts do significantly worse thansimple statistical algorithms or case-specific extrapolations that foreseethe continuation of current trends (pp.49-54, 76-77).

In fact, substantive knowledge doesnot seem to help. Issue-area orregional specialists fail to attain high-er scores than well-educated general-ists who obtain their information fromleading newspapers such as TheNew York Times (pp. 54-59, 68-69).For some types of forecasters, acommand of specialized knowledgeactually worsens performance: Itgives the more theory-driven expertsundue confidence in their deductivelyderived predictions, which they pushto greater extremes than their lesswell-informed counterparts dare todo. As a result, they make dispropor-

Kurt WeylandUniversity of Texas at

[email protected]

Expert PoliticalJudgment: HowGood Is It? HowCan We Know?Editors’ Note

In this issue of APSA-CP, the theme ofdeductive vs. inductive approaches totheorizing carries over to the bookreview section, which features twotakes on the merits of Philip E.Tetlock’s, Expert Political Judgment:How Good Is It? How Can We Know?(Princeton and Oxford: PrincetonUniversity Press, 2005), pp. 337,$35.00 hardcover, $19.95 paper. Inhis book, Tetlock compares the fore-casting skills of Isaiah Berlin's "hedge-hogs" and "foxes," also mentioned byDaniel Ziblatt in the symposium.Hedgehogs, who know one big thing,are analogous to theorists who de-duce the many implications of a smallnumber of assumptions. Foxes, whoknow many small things, are analo-gous to the area studies specialists,who tend to accumulate diverse, evenmultidisciplinary knowledge. We invit-ed two reviewers to consider thisbook, and we thought it would be inte-resting to recruit a relative hedgehog(Scott Page) and a relative fox (KurtWeyland). Unexpectedly (again!) ourtwo reviewers offer remarkably similarevaluations of the book, which we canonly interpret as evidence of the quali-ty and importance of Tetlock's efforts.

22 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2Book Review

tionate numbers of spectacular mis-takes, calling events certain that thenfail to occur and discarding as impos-sible developments that end up hap-pening (pp. 81-85). The wealth ofknowledge accumulated by politicalscience, expressed in ever moresplendid theoretical edifices and cor-roborated through millions of statisti-cal analyses and thousands of casestudies, thus does not seem to pro-vide much predictive power. Do weneed to rethink the aspirationsembodied in the very name of our dis-cipline?

tive rigor, obstruct one of their maingoals, namely the capacity for predic-tion (pp. 88-91). This finding suggeststhat techniques highly prized by politi-cal scientists, such as formal model-ing, may not provide a good handleon the “real world.”

But alternative perspectives on politi-cal science cannot take solace fromTetlock’s findings either. Advocates ofmiddle-range generalizations and“area studies” claim that profound andrich substantive knowledge is decisivefor understanding political develop-ments. But Expert Political Judgmentdocuments that regional and issuearea specialists do not have anygreater success in foreseeing thefuture than well-educated generalistswho carefully read a good newspaper(pp. 54-59, 68-69). Deep immersion ina country or subject matter does nothelp anticipate future trends. Thus,Tetlock’s results are humbling forpolitical scientists of all epistemologi-cal persuasions; they cannot serve asammunition in the paradigmatic bat-tles that continue to divide our disci-pline.

What is even more disturbing than thefrequent prediction failures are the

“Tetlock's results are hum-

bling for political scientists

[...]; they cannot serve as

ammunition in the paradig-

matic battles that continue to

divide our discipline.”

Yet rather than siding with radical rel-ativists who declare objective knowl-edge as unattainable, Tetlock high-lights performance differences amongvarious types of forecasters. Somecognitive styles allow forecasters todo reasonably well and at least beatchance (but not statistical algorithms).The author draws on a distinctionintroduced by Isaiah Berlin: “foxes,”that is eclectic thinkers who use adiverse range of knowledge, drawinductive inferences, remain open tonew developments, and are receptiveto discrepant information, have a bet-ter sense of the future than “hedge-hogs,” who seek cognitive closure,commit to a parsimonious, unifiedtheoretical scheme, and apply itdeductively (pp. 72-120). Thus,virtues highlighted by the more scien-tifically inclined members of our disci-pline, namely parsimony and deduc-

“Considering the collective

nature of scholarship,

Tetlock's investigation of

forecasting by individual

experts is a bit limited. It

convincingly documents indi-

vidual biases but does not

consider their collective

amelioration.”

widespread and blatant divergencesfrom proper rules of information pro-cessing and inference that Tetlockdocuments. Many experts, especially“hedgehogs,” eagerly make excusesfor their own lack of foresight but holdproponents of alternative views tomuch higher standards. Moreover,they stubbornly stick to their favoritetheories and refuse to follow logicalprocedures – such as Bayes’ rule –for updating them in light of newexperiences (pp. 121-163, 180-183).Obviously, this protection of pet argu-ments flies in the face of basic normsof openness, accountability, and even-handedness, all of which are neces-sary for good scholarship. As humanbeings, we seem to have a strongtendency to cling to our preconceivednotions, even at the cost of sacrificinga thorough understanding of the sub-ject matter.

The author establishes all these find-ings in a well-designed study thatinvolved a monumental researcheffort. Over the course of sixteenyears, his team collected a total of27,451 forecasts from 284 experts.The procedures for translating qualita-tive judgments into quantitative meas-ures seem reliable, valid, and fair.Moreover, Tetlock is very conscien-tious in considering counterargumentsand in giving under-performing groupsof experts the benefit of the doubt. Infact, he devotes chapter six to a care-ful assessment of the variegateddefenses that his subjects, especially“hedgehogs,” invoke to explain awaytheir inaccuracies. While he qualifiessome of his starker findings, hedemonstrates convincingly that onlycontortions (such as exceedingly gen-erous adjustments for predictions that“almost came true”) would significantlynarrow the forecasting gap that sepa-rates hedgehogs from foxes. Thus,the general thrust of his findings sur-vives the challenges with whichunsuccessful specialists seek to makeup for their mistakes.

23APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 Book Review

The forecasting problems and devia-tions from logical rules of inferencedocumented by Tetlock seem to bedeeply rooted in our cognitive archi-tecture. Moreover, they are reinforcedby career incentives. Pundits as wellas academics are rewarded for con-sistency and suffer reputational costswhen they change their mind andembrace a line of argument that theyused to reject. Therefore, it seemsdifficult to find remedies at the individ-ual level. But of course, the scholarlycommunity has precisely the functionto keep individual deviations fromproper reasoning and substantivemistakes in check. Like other disci-plines, political science is a collectiveenterprise. For that reason, it is soimportant that the various theoreticaland methodological schools do notoccupy “separate tables” but that thescholarly dialogue remain fluid andlively across paradigmatic frontlines.Only in this way can fundamental the-oretical assumptions, which shapescholars’ analysis and interpretationof politics, be exposed to systematicscrutiny and criticism.

experts, circulates them among groupmembers, and then allows for revi-sions of the initial forecasts (p. 118).Unfortunately, Tetlock pays littleattention to these efforts to keep indi-vidual mistakes in check. Instead, theauthor puts most emphasis on differ-ences in cognitive style at the individ-ual level. But perhaps he exagger-ates the importance of the contrastbetween foxes and hedgehogs – hisfavorite theme. While foxes’ perform-ance advantage is consistent andstatistically significant, it is not verylarge (pp. 76-83, 127), and neithertype reaches the predictive capacityof case-specific extrapolations orstraightforward statistical models.Thus, even if all forecasters adoptedthe cognitive style of foxes, their per-formance would remain disappoint-ing. This basic fact seems moreimportant than the relative differenceshighlighted by Tetlock.

In conclusion, this outstanding, well-researched book calls for greathumility in the claims attached tosocial science. If scholars want toimprove their foresight, less stress onparsimony and deductive rigor maybe helpful at the individual level. Butmost important are efforts to maintainan intensive dialog across schoolsand paradigms, which will hopefullyallow us to lift each other’s blindersand thus get closer to the truth.

squash match may be sufficient toproduce many books, but not thisone. For twenty years, Phillip Tetlockgathered data on expert predictionsof political events, nearly a hundredthousand predictions altogether. Hatsoff, everyone. (I’ll remain a theorist,thank you very much.) Tetlock thenanalyzed the data to tackle two bigquestions: how good are politicalexperts at prediction, and whatmakes some experts better than theothers?

Scott PageUniversity of [email protected]

I want to begin by heaping on thecredit where credit is due. A season ofcontemplative languid afternoons sip-ping coffee and a smattering of semi-nars and bistro dinners followed by astrict morning regimen of writing forninety minutes prior to a 10:15 am

“We may like to think that

[…] we're far more advanced

than our primate ancestors,

but the facts are: give a

chimp a dartboard, and he's

as likely to predict North

Korea's future as well as any

of the Sunday morning talk-

ing heads.”

The answer to the first question isthat they’re not very accurate. In fact,the darts so rarely hit the board letalone the bull’s eye that one cannothelp but interpret the title as an insidejoke. Intellectuals, as a rule, enjoywordplay. We like anagrams (ElvisLives!), palindromes (Rise to vote,sir), puns (I entered ten puns in acontest, and I thought I would win,but unfortunately, no pun in ten did),and especially oxymorons. Now thatthe evidence is in, Expert PoliticalJudgment can nestle into our cortex-es alongside Greater Cleveland,sharp curve, post modern, andincome tax. For as Tetlock makesclear in chart after chart and regres-sion after regression, experts in inter-

“[...] this outstanding, well-

researched book calls for

great humility in the claims

attached to social science.”

Considering the collective nature ofscholarship, Tetlock’s investigation offorecasting by individual experts is abit limited. It convincingly documentsindividual biases but does not consid-er their collective amelioration. As theauthor recognizes, forecasters them-selves have developed various proce-dures for improving performance byaggregating individual judgments orstimulating interaction among them.For instance, the Delphi techniquecollects predictions from a number of

24 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2Book Review

national affairs make woefully inaccu-rate predictions, especially (to quoteYogi Berra) when those predictionsare about the future.

We may like to think that what with ourGPS devices, genetically engineeredcorn, and Spiderman Band-Aids, we’refar more advanced than our primateancestors, but the facts are: give achimp a dartboard, and he’s as likelyto predict North Korea’s future as wellas any of the Sunday morning talkingheads. Using chimps might even haveadvantages: if chimps made predic-tions about weapons of mass destruc-tion then reporters would do a bitmore questioning and fact checkingthan they currently do.

not to mention random shocks andrare events, so history, unfortunatelyfor those trying to predict it, oftenunfolds as one damn thing afteranother – and one part stupidity –experts, along with the rest of us, suf-fer from cognitive biases and wouldn’tfollow Bayes’ Rule if Reverend Bayeshimself were to spring back to life andbecome supreme dictator. (But thenwho could predict that?) Answeringthe second question, the identificationof attributes or qualities of expertsthat make them more or less accu-rate, takes up most of the book.Tetlock finds, much to everyone’s dis-may, that inaccuracy knows no ideol-ogy. Yes, Rush Limbaugh is a big(now less) fat idiot, but so is AlFranken. Inaccuracy knows no age. Itknows no gender. It knows no level ofeducational attainment. Eight years ofgraduate school might teach some-one what a T-statistic is, but it won’timprove her predictions.

Accuracy does vary with cognitivestyle, however. Borrowing imageryfrom Isaiah Berlin, Tetlock separatesfoxes – those who consider multipleframes, ideas, and arguments – andhedgehogs – those who confidentlyadhere to a single world view.Hedgehogs lose no matter howTetlock slices the data or tilts thetables. He devotes an entire chapterto doing everything possible to swingoutcomes in favor of the hedgehogs –giving them credit for being close,assigning more weight to the eventsthey predicted correctly, and so on.Nothing helps much. Write it down:paper covers rock and fox beatshedgehog. One might ask: why arethe hedgehogs so much worse?That’s a bit difficult to unpack. Theshort answer is that the hedgehogsaren’t flexible. They stick to their com-mon model or framework and wedgethe square peg of reality into theirwell-rounded cognitive holes. In con-trast, the foxes prove less likely tohang on to a mental model in the face

of disconfirming evidence. With moreexplanations at their neuron tips,they‘re more often latch onto the rightone.

Among the most laudable features ofthis book is Tetlock’s attempt to takethese lemons and make lemonade.First, he considers the use of scenar-ios to create better predictions.Thinking through scenarios can some-times work, but sometimes eatingpeanut butter cures cancer as well.Tetlock asks for systematic evidence.It’s a good bet. Contemplating multi-ple scenarios could make foxes ofhedgehogs and add musculature tothe todds, vixens, and kits. Sadly, itdoesn’t work. The hedgehogs dig intheir little paws, rejecting any scenarioinconsistent with their worldview. Andthe foxes? They fall victim to theiropen-mindedness and cannot distin-guish the reasonable from the ridicu-lous. Instead, Tetlock suggests thatpundits should get regular scorecardsbased on how well they predict. If fol-lowed, we might know when to turnthat radio dial or flip that channel.Certainly, this is a good idea. And,one would think that Google wouldalready be doing it.

The book has intriguing tangentialimplications as well. First, considerthat much of current international rela-tions research considers rationalactors. Many of these models assumethat those actors have perfect fore-sight – aside from some uncertainty,which they absorb in perfect Bayesianfashion. Yet, as this book makesclear, the world ain’t that way. No oneseems to have much of a clue whatwill happen next. Shouldn’t our mod-els and theories embrace that fact?Second, most “real” empirical socialscientists restrict their predictions toevents that took place in the past.That hardly seems a challenge – it’slike finding a Poisson distribution in abarrel of data. No wonder I, an adultmale, accept the idea of empirical

“No one seems to have

much of a clue what will hap-

pen next. [...M]ost ‘real’

empirical social scientists

restrict their predictions to

events that took place in the

past.”

Why we have no real political expertsis a bit of a puzzle. Sure, stock ana-lysts do no better than randomlythrown darts at predicting stockprices, but economic theory explainswhy that’s the case: the presence ofsmart investors makes market pricesefficient. Any free money to be hadfrom accurate predictions getsabsorbed in prices. Experts in inter-national relations have no priceadjustments to provide cover. They’rejust flat out bad at what they do.Tetlock’s explanation for expert failureis one part complexity – politicaldomains contain an abundance ofinteractions among diverse peoples,

25APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 Controversies

Matthew KocherCentro de Investigación y

Docencia Económicas

(CIDE)[email protected]

On Tarrow's Space

David LaitinStanford [email protected]

In his presidential column in theWinter 2006 edition of APSA-CP,Sidney Tarrow directed our attentionto a relative void in the comparativepolitics field: the lack of seriousengagement with the ways in whichspace structures political life. Weendorse Tarrow’s call to take spacemore seriously, but by exclusivelyfocusing on a confusing dichotomyseparating “abstract” from “concrete”space, he unfortunately ignores thespatial revolution that is transformingthe social sciences.

Tarrow, citing the work of WilliamSewell, embraces a distinctionbetween “abstract” Euclidean spaceand the “concrete” lived space ofhuman society. As an example, hefocuses our attention on Fearon andLaitin’s (2003) finding that a country’spercentage of mountainous terrain isa significant predictor of civil war out-break. This space is abstract, accord-ing to Tarrow, because it ignores theconcrete mechanisms that enablemountain dwellers to mount guerrillaattacks. His counter-example is fromTilly (2005), whose work shows thatthe Waldensian sect lived in abstractspace (mountains), but goes further inspecifying (through attention to con-crete space) how they survived solong against regal threats and clericalanathema.

Tarrow confuses measures andmechanisms. Mountainous terrain (ameasure) is abstract for Fearon andLaitin when it is specified as a vari-able for statistical analysis. Statisticalvariables are inevitably abstract –without abstraction, comparison wouldbe impossible. But then analysts needto give the abstraction concretemeaning through the elaboration of amechanism. Fearon and Laitin do so– in similar terms as advocated byTarrow – suggesting that insurgentswho fight in mountains are less sus-ceptible to the counter-insurgencytactics of the state, and therefore aremore likely to prosper. Measures andmechanisms are complementary ana-lytic tools; it makes little sense to cre-ate from this a typology of space.

“We endorse Tarrow's call to

take space more seriously,

but by exclusively focusing

on a confusing dichotomy

separating ‘abstract’ from

‘concrete’ space, he unfortu-

nately ignores the spatial

revolution that is transform-

ing the social sciences.”

If it were just to demolish an unten-able dualism, there would be no needfor a formal response. But Tarrow’sintriguing conjectures on spatial co-presence, diffusion, and scale shiftcry out for an analytic technology.Our response therefore highlights therevolution in GeographicalInformation Systems (GIS) and otherspatial techniques that provide such atechnology, all of which allow us toinvestigate somewhat more rigorously

integration of theoretic models. I seenothing difficult about that at all.

Finally, I couldn’t help but wonderwhat Hayek might say. So, individual-ly the hedgehogs are not so good.What about a crowd of hedgehogs?Tetlock tells us that a crowd is quitegood: the average of the hedgehogspredicts better than 95% percent ofthe hedgehogs. He arrives at this per-centage without following his ownadvice and first sweeping out themost prognostically challenged of theshort prickly ones. Had he done that,the crowd of hedgehogs would havebeen even better. This logic leads tothe observation that we might haveexpert political judgment after all, butthat producing it requires an ark —one that includes hedgehogs, foxes,and even donkeys and elephants.From diversity comes wisdom.

“[...] we might have expert

political judgment after all,

but that producing it requires

an ark -- one that includes

hedgehogs, foxes, and even

donkeys and elephants.

From diversity comes wis-

dom.”

Overall, this is a great book: empiricalsocial science at its best (and by apsychologist who teaches at a busi-ness school!) Sure, the prose suffersfrom an abundance of lists and a lackof flair but that’s all in the service ofeconometric care, so such quibblesare unfair. Buy it, but don’t loan it to agraduate student. If my recent historyis any guide, the book’s likely to turnup missing.

Controversies26 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

the conjectures that Tarrow offers. GIS uses computing technology tocapture, store, integrate, visualize,and analyze data in a spatial coordi-nate system. In place of static visualmaps, GIS provides the user all theinformation necessary to create aninfinite number of maps, tailored toany practical or analytic purpose.Spatially defined units may be linkedto databases containing attributeinformation of any kind, whetherquantitative or qualitative. Up to thepresent, political scientists have gen-erally limited their use of GIS to sim-ple illustrative maps, but the technolo-gy opens the door to a variety of inno-vative approaches.

analysis is to weaken the error inde-pendence assumption of classical sta-tistical models by explicitly incorporat-ing spatial dependence among theerrors. If the errors of individualobservations co-vary systematically,the absence of this correction canresult in biased estimates of bothcoefficients and standard errors. Whathave long been viewed as insur-mountable technical difficulties in cor-recting for such biases have beenpartially solved by raw computingpower and new GIS datasets andsoftware.

With this technology, we can relaxstatistical assumptions about unitindependence by making spatially-based assumptions about the rela-tionships of the units of observation. Afirst cut, with Tarrow, would lead tothe assumption that spatial proximityaccounts for dependence. With GIStechnology, however, we can fashionother assumptions to fit our intuitions.Suppose we are interested in culturaldiffusion, and we want to know whatmakes one colony more receptivethan another to cultural models in itsformer metropole? In standard regres-sion, each colony is an independentobservation, and we can test forthings such as settler mortality or cli-mate. How can we incorporatespace? One way is to add a variablethat gives the distance from thecolony to the former metropole. Thiscan be done with traditional statisticalmodels. But let us now assume thatcloud cover inhibits the reception ofradio waves. If so, there would be adifferential ability across colonies to“read” cultural signals sent from themetropole based on the averagedegree of cloud cover. This spatialmechanism has nothing to do withproximity yet can be modeled withGIS technology. This example notonly shows how spatial analysisallows us to relax assumptions aboutunit independence. But it also allowsus to respond more directly to

Tarrow’s equation of space and prox-imity, showing how new technologyallows us to test a wide variety ofmechanisms – going beyond proximi-ty – in which spatial dependence canbe investigated.

“[...] spatial analysis allows

us to [...] to respond more

directly to Tarrow's equation

of space and proximity,

showing how new technolo-

gy allows us to test a wide

variety of mechanisms -

going beyond proximity - in

which spatial dependence

can be investigated.”

“With [GIS technology], we

can relax statistical assump-

tions about unit independ-

ence by making spatially-

based assumptions about

the relationships of the units

of observation.”

One particularly appealing feature ofGIS technology is that it permitsusers to “geocode” or map data ontoalternative geographic spaces that donot correspond to existing politicalunits. This feature of GIS should beespecially attractive to critics of thedominant “state centric” approachesto the study of politics, which implicitlyprivilege conventional territorial units.

While GIS methods can be used sim-ply to generate new data, they alsomake possible the use of spatial infor-mation to correct for shortfalls in moretraditional quantitative analyses. Themost straightforward technical meansof incorporating space into empirical

The fruits of investment in spatialanalysis in political science arealready on the vine. In three areas inparticular, we can report progress.

[1] Miguel and Roland (2005) usedata on the location and tonnage ofAmerican bombs dropped on Vietnamin the 1960s and 1970s, and geocodethese data to correspond to post-Vietnam War sub-national politicalunits. This allowed them to test theo-ries about the long-run economic andpopulation consequences of largeexogenous shocks. They found thatthe Vietnamese population and econ-omy rebounded relatively quickly andthe US bombing campaign had littlerelevance for long-run developmentoutcomes. One can conclude fromthis paper that some (as yet to bedetermined) aspect of space –divorced of the material infrastructure– drove postwar economic growth.

Controversies 27APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

[2] The field of comparative politicaleconomy has already taken advan-tage of this technology. The explosionof neoliberal reforms outside theOECD core states in the 1980s and1990s has provoked a dynamicresearch program focusing on diffu-sion as a class of mechanisms pro-ducing change and convergence intax, investment, and regulatory poli-cies. But what explains this conver-gence? Is the diffusion a result of theimposition of powerful global actors,or of Bayesian learning (Meseguer2004, 2005), or of bounded rationallearning (Weyland 2004), or of com-petition, or of political feedback(Quinn and Toyoda 2003)? This litera-ture specifies and tests for diffusionwithin spatial clusters defined byregion (Way 2005), by economic andindustrial type, and by culture. Thebeauty of this research program isthat it can nail down the significant(and of course the insignificant) diffu-sion mechanisms of neoliberal reform.

[3] The study of social networks hasblossomed with new spatial modelingtechniques. Network analysis hasfaced the same methodologicalissues of observation dependence ashave regression models. In recentwork by Ensminger (2006) on theOrma of Kenya, she analyzes themechanisms of corruption when indi-viduals are linked not only by lineage,but by distances across villages. Wecan compare diffusion through modelswhich assess distance not only in trib-al structure (standard for network

He generates a power-law distributionof war size (an empirical feature ofinterstate war) as an emergent prop-erty of systemic interaction amongagents with fairly simple unit-leveldecision rules. Although spatial adja-cency plays a key role in his formula-tion, Cederman suggests that alterna-tive “spaces” such as alliance net-works also structure interaction inways that can be modeled.

“Once space is introduced

into our theories, and tech-

nologies become available to

analyze spatial impact, there

is broad opportunity to reex-

amine classic works in our

field.”

“[...] one pay-off from the

new spatial technologies is

the ability to specify the con-

ditions in which space does

not matter.”

analyses), but also in kilometersbetween villages.

[4] Agent-based modeling is anotherarea where spatial conjectures can beinvestigated in a systematic way(Tesfatsion 2006). Following innova-tions pioneered in the biological sci-ences and economics, these compu-tational simulations permit the analy-sis of complex, distributed systems ofinteraction among large numbers ofdiscrete agents. Unlike standardrational choice accounts, in agentbased models any decision rule thatcan be implemented as a function canbe used to define the behavior of indi-vidual agents: habit, social influence,group-level maximization, and soforth. This allows for an expandedview of spatial thinking.

To be sure, most agent-based modelshave agents that condition theirbehavior on the characteristics andactions of other agents that are adja-cent or otherwise proximate in theabstract space of the model – gener-ally referred to as the Moore neigh-borhood. In Epstein’s (2002) model ofcivil violence, police can arrest unrulycitizens within local proximity, whilethe aggregate ratio of police to citi-zens influences every individual’spropensity to rebel.

However, different spatial mecha-nisms are not difficult to implement.Interaction can be conditioned by net-works that link agents to one anotheracross large “physical” distances. Thespatial extension of agents can vary,and change both endogenously andwith external shocks. This is whyLustick and Miodownik (2005) replacethe concept of “space” with “zones ofknowledge” – they can then vary theways agents receive information, withthe proximity of the Moore neighbor-hood being only one of many possibletransmission mechanisms. Cederman(2003) uses agent-based simulationsthat incorporate a variety of features.

Once space is introduced into ourtheories, and technologies becomeavailable to analyze spatial impact,there is broad opportunity to reexam-ine classic works in our field. KarlDeutsch’s (1953) theory of theendogenous emergence of nationswas rife with untested spatial assump-tions.

The literature on democratization issimilarly ripe for spatial theorizing. Ina recent paper on democratization,Fearon (2006) observes that studiesof the causes of democracy in thecomparative politics literature focusalmost exclusively on domestic politi-cal factors, even though the percent-age of other democracies in the sameregion is a far better predictor of theprobability of democratic transitionthan, say, per capita income ordegree of inequality. Finally, in theircontinuing study of civil war, Fearonand Laitin plan to go beyond their

28 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2Controversies

2003 paper through the geocoding ofall minorities in the world, thereby get-ting group level proxies on terrain(mountainous and otherwise) forgroups with a defined regional base.

need to make our intuitions sufficient-ly abstract to test them across units;but our interpretations need to be suf-ficiently concrete to observe particularinstantiations of our models. All goodwork requires measures and mecha-nisms. We cannot stop there, howev-er. We need to invest in the new tech-nologies that will help turn our conjec-tures into models that can be discon-firmed.

References

Cederman, Lars-Erik. 2003. “Modelingthe Size of Wars.” American PoliticalScience Review 97: 135-150

Deutsch, Karl W. 1953. Nationalismand Social Communication.Cambridge, MA: IT Press.

Ensminger, Jean. 2006. “DesigningDevelopment: A Case Study in Failureand Corruption in Rural Africa.” Paperpresented at the WGAPE meeting,Berkeley, CA.

Epstein, Joshua M. 2002. “ModelingCivil Violence: An Agent-BasedComputational Approach.”Proceedings of the National Academyof Sciences 99: 7243-7250.

Fearon, James. 2006. “Self-EnforcingDemocracy.” Paper presented atInstitute of Governmental Studies,University of California, Berkeley.Retrieved June 30, 2006 from:http://repositories.cdlib.org/cgi/view-content.cgi?article=1112&context=igs

Fearon, James D. and David D.Laitin. 2003. “Ethnicity, Insurgency,and Civil War,” American PoliticalScience Review 97: 75-90.

Lustick, Ian S. and Dan Miodownik.2005. “Neighborhoods and Tips:Implications of Spatiality for PoliticalCascades.” Paper presented at theAnnual Conference of the APSA,(September 1), Washington, DC.

Meseguer, Covadonga. 2004. “WhatRole for Learning? The Diffusion ofPrivatization in Latin America andOECD Countries.” Journal of PublicPolicy, 24(3): 299-325.

______. 2005. “Policy Learning,Policy Diffusion, and the Making of aNew Order. Annals of the AmericanAcademy of Social and PoliticalSciences, 598: 67-82.

Miguel, Edward and Gerard Roland.2005. “The Long-run Impact ofBombing Vietnam.” Working paper,Stanford University.

Tarrow, Sidney. 2005. The NewTransnational Activism. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Tesfatsion, Leigh. 2006. “Agent-BasedComputational Economics: AConstructive Approach to EconomicTheory,” Chapter 1 in Leigh Tesfatsionand Kenneth L. Judd (Eds.),Handbook of ComputationalEconomics, Vol. 2: Agent-BasedComputational Economics.Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Tilly, Charles. 2005. Trust and Rule.New York and Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Way, C. 2005. “Political Insecurity andthe Diffusion of Financial MarketRegulation.” Special Issue of TheAnnals of the American Academy ofSocial and Political Sciences 598:125-144.

Weyland, Kurt (ed.). 2004. Learningfrom Foreign Models in LatinAmerican Policy Reform. WoodrowWilson Center and Johns HopkinsUniversity: Washington, DC.

It is worth underlining that one pay-offfrom the new spatial technologies isthe ability to specify the conditions inwhich space does not matter. Whileeverything that happens happens inspace, many human activities mayturn out to have (as classical econo-metric models assume) essentiallyunit-level causes. Polities may adoptsimilar policies not because they areinfluenced by each other, but ratherbecause they are all responding inde-pendently to the same opportunitiesand constraints. Indeed, Tarrow(2005) makes this very point when heshows that anti-IMF riots occur inmany countries not because of spatialdiffusion, but rather because similartreatments yielded similar reactionsacross independent units. Thisimplies that the relevance of space isan empirical question requiring rigor-ous methods capable of differentiat-ing phenomena that are structured byspace from those that are not.

Despite our criticisms of Tarrow’s con-ceptualization of space, we acknowl-edge his basic point, namely that wecan no longer ignore space in com-parative politics. We will of course

“[...] the relevance of space

is an empirical question

requiring rigorous methods

capable of differentiating

phenomena that are struc-

tured by space from those

that are not.”

29APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 Datasets

institutions. The QoG Institute’sresearch theme stresses that demo-cratic, economic, and social develop-ment heavily depend upon the qualityof government institutions; humandevelopment in general is made diffi-cult when government institutions aredysfunctional. In the QoG Institute’sworking papers and background liter-ature (accessible along with the code-book and the dataset in SPSS,STATA, or CSV format atwww.qog.pol.gu.se) attention is givento the idea that corruption preventsthe formation of high quality govern-ing institutions. But what is good gov-ernance, and how can we assess thequality of governmental institutions?How is an idea such as “quality ofgovernment” conceptualized so thatwe can identify high or low qualitygovernment? The researchers at theQoG Institute assert that quality gov-ernment contains impartial govern-ment institutions that implement pub-lic policies. For them, governmentsthat are impartial do not favor any onepolitical group over another, andtherefore are of higher quality.

based interpretation of politics leadsone to question how they will bemaintained. If political elites benefit-ing from less-than-noble governanceare merely maximizing their self-inter-est, they may not have much to gainby defending impartial institutions thatwork to prevent corruption. The time-series dataset can potentially shedlight on institutional dynamics thatmay contribute to good governancethrough the formation and defense ofimpartial institutions.

The second problem this dataset wasconstructed to address is method-ological. Researchers at the QoGInstitute recognize that a great deal ofacademic work conducted on institu-tional dynamics is based on singlecountry case studies, a situation thatmakes it hard to generalize findings.Thus, they have collected data thatwill enable scholars to conduct theo-retically focused comparative casestudies. The example given in theQoG Institute’s background informa-tion involves using such quality ofgovernment indicators as the rule oflaw, low levels of corruption, andbureaucratic efficiency to explain out-comes such as aggregate levels ofcitizens’ subjective well-being in dif-ferent countries. The third problemthat the QoG Institute has addressedwith this dataset is empirical and canbe summarized as a problem of datadisorganization. This has contributedto a situation in which both the relia-bility and validity of data on the quali-ty of government are questioned. Byconsolidating relevant data andemphasizing the connectionsbetween quality of government theoryand the manner in which variousmajor concepts are defined andmeasured, the coordinators feel thatreliability and validity concerns result-ing from severe differences in thedata can be addressed. The produc-tion of this dataset is a step in theright direction for addressing thethree issues discussed above.

“One may agree or disagree

with the validity of the vari-

ous indicators, but this

dataset brings together the

relevant data in one place.”

The QoG Institute analyzes threeinterrelated problems. The first is thetheoretical problem of how and underwhat conditions high quality govern-ment institutions are created. Theseinstitutions do exist, but there is muchwork to be done if we are to under-stand the conditions under which theirformation is discouraged or encour-aged. Also, once high quality institu-tions are established, an interest-

Richard LedetUniversity of Notre [email protected]

The Quality ofGovernmentInstitute's Cross-Sectional andCross-SectionalTime SeriesDataset

Researchers from the Quality ofGovernment (QoG) Institute atGöteborg University in Sweden,directed by Bo Rothstein and SörenHolmberg with Jan Teorell, have con-solidated numerous freely availableand well-known data sources that tapinto concepts related to the “quality ofgovernment.” The product of theirefforts is a cross-sectional compara-tive dataset for 2002 (or the closestyear thereto) and a cross-sectionaltime-series dataset that spans from1946 through 2005. This dataset is acontribution in itself as its develop-ment was motivated by a desire tocontribute to research on “good gov-ernance,” an area of study that hasbeen growing in recent years. Thestrength of the dataset is its extensivespatial and temporal coverage ofexisting data on quality of govern-ment; a few caveats will be notedtoward the end of this review.

The data are familiar to many com-parativists, and all the indicators havethe potential to be used by futureresearchers to help us understandthe creation, maintenance, and con-sequences of high quality political

30 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2Datasets

However, future researchers are stillleft with the task of criticizing oradvancing the QoG Institute’s theo-retical propositions and measurementstrategies, as well as continuing toassess the value of the various indi-cators of the quality of government.

Another problem is the absence of ameasure or measures of educationalattainment. Although the meaning offormal education likely varies fromcountry to country, this could still be auseful addition under the “How To GetIt” or “What You Get” section of vari-ables. The data compiled in thisdataset have been used for many dif-ferent purposes, but here they areconsolidated in a quality of govern-ment framework. One may agree ordisagree with the validity of the vari-ous indicators, but this dataset bringstogether the relevant data in oneplace, thus making it much easier forone to analyze and dispute the abilityof various measures to capture theconcepts they are meant to address.

(Alesina et al.; Roeder). Finally, theycategorize a group of “What You Get”variables intended to measure sus-pected consequences of QoG suchas economic development (PennWorld Table), environmental sustain-ability (Esty et al.’s EnvironmentalSustainability Indices), gender equali-ty (World Economic Forum’s GenderGap), and peace.1 Besides the aggre-gate data produced by organizationssuch as Freedom House and theWorld Bank, micro-level data such asthose produced by the World ValuesSurvey and the Global Barometersare also included. In addition to themethodological problem mentionedabove, the study of institutionalchange and its impact on the qualityof government involves the need forlarger-N studies than those that havebeen previously conducted. The 2002cross-sectional dataset includes allUN-recognized nations, includingTaiwan, for a total of 192. The time-series dataset includes information on13 historical nations that no longerexist, for a total of 205 nations.

Familiarity with data and measures isobviously preferable, but the code-book contains adequately detaileddescriptions and clearly labeled indi-cators so that students with only acursory knowledge of the literaturecan easily determine the dataset’spotential for individual projects. Forsome indices, the meaning of the highand low values of the scales isambiguous, which forces one to referto the original source or another publi-cation using the measure.

These include Fraser Institute’s indexof legal structure and security of prop-erty rights, Knack and Kugler’s indexof objective indicators of good gover-nance, Bueno de Mesquita et al.’ sHobbes index, Esty et al.’sEnvironmental Sustainability Index,and the Human DevelopmentReport’s gender empowerment meas-ure.

“[...] the indicators in this

dataset are not useful for

only studying the quality of

government; these variables

can be used to inspire a

research agenda focused on

making claims regarding lev-

els or quality of democracy.”

“The quality of government

might serve as a useful inde-

pendent variable for explain-

ing outcomes such as public

health and social welfare […]

and many other questions of

interest to comparativists.”

Additionally, the indicators in thisdataset are not useful for only study-ing the quality of government; thesevariables can be used to inspire aresearch agenda focused on makingclaims regarding levels or quality ofdemocracy. The quality of govern-ment might serve as a useful inde-pendent variable for explaining out-comes such as public health andsocial welfare. Future researchers uti-lizing this dataset could also help usgain a better understanding about therelationship between corruption andcitizens’ confidence in government.Furthermore, what impact, if any, doimpartial government institutions have

The dataset is organized into threecategories: “What It Is;” “How To GetIt;” and “What You Get.” The group of“What It Is” variables relate to thecore indicators of QoG such asbureaucratic quality (Evans &Rauch’s Career Opportunities,Bureaucratic Compensation, andMeritocratic Recruitment indices;International Country Risk Guide;World Bank Governance Indicators),corruption (TransparencyInternational’s Corruption PerceptionIndex; World Bank’s Control ofCorruption), and democracy(Freedom House; Polity; Vanhanen’sIndex of Democratization; Polyarchy). The list of “How To Get It” variablesare those perceived to influence orpromote the development of QoG,such as electoral systems (Gerring etal.; Cheibub & Gandhi’s RegimeInstitutions), presidential vs. parlia-mentary forms of government, federalvs. unitary systems (Database ofPolitical Institutions), and ethno-lin-guistic and religious fractionalization

31DatasetsAPSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2

References

Alesina, A., Devleeschauwer, A.,Easterly, W., Kurlat, S. and Wacziarg,R. 2003. “Fractionalization.” Journalof Economic Growth 8:155-194.

Beck, T., Clarke, G., Groff, A., Keefer,P. and Walsh, P. 2001. “New Toolsand New Tests in ComparativePolitical Economy: The Database ofPolitical Institutions”, World BankEconomic Review 15(1):165-176.

Bueno De Mesquita, B., Smith, A.,Siverson, R. M. and Morrow, J.D.2003. The Logic of Political Survival.MIT Press. Cambridge, MA, 2003.

Cheibub, J. A. and Gandhi, J. 2004.“Classifying Political Regimes: ASixfold Classification of Democraciesand Dictatorships.” Paper presentedat the Annual Meeting of theAmerican Political ScienceAssociation.

Coppedge, M. and Reinicke, W. 1990.“Measuring Polyarchy,” Studies inComparative InternationalDevelopment 25(1):51-72.

Esty, D. C., Levy, M., Srebotnjak, T.,and de Sherbinin, A. 2005. 2005Environmental Sustainability Index:Benchmarking NationalEnvironmental Stewardship. NewHaven: Yale Center for EnvironmentalLaw & Policy.

Gerring, J., Thacker, S.C. andMoreno, C. 2005. “CentripetalDemocratic Governance: A Theoryand Global Inquiry.” American PoliticalScience Review 99(4): 567-81.

Gwartney, J. and Lawson R. 2004.Economic Freedom of the World:2004 Annual Report. Vancouver: TheFraser Institute.

Heston, A., Summers, R., and Aten,B. Penn World Table Version 6.1,

Center for International Comparisonsat the University of Pennsylvania(CICUP), October 2002.

International Country Risk Guide –The PRS Group. http://www.icr-gonline.com

Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A. andMastruzzi, M. 2005. GovernanceMatters IV: Governance Indicators for1996-2004, The World Bank.

Knack, S. and Kugler, M. 2002.“Constructing and Index of ObjectiveIndicators of Good Governance.”PREM Public Sector Working Group,World Bank.

Rauch, J.E., and Evans, P.B. 2000.“Bureaucratic Structure andBureaucratic Performance in LessDeveloped Countries.” Journal ofPublic Economics 75:49-71.

Roeder, P.G. 2001. EthnolinguisticFractionalization (ELF) Indices, 1961and 1985.http://weber.ucsd.edu/proeder/elf.htm

Transparency International.http://www.transparency.org

UNDP 2004. Human DevelopmentReport 2004: Cultural Liberty inToday’s Diverse World.

Vanhanen, T. 2000. “A New Datasetfor Measuring Democracy, 1810-1998.” Journal of Peace Research37(2):252-65.

World Economic Forum. http://wefo-rum.org/gendergap

Notes

1 Those with an interest in thisdataset should consult the QoGInstitute’s codebook for a completelist of indicators of the concepts spec-ified above and also to gain familiaritywith those not mentioned here.

on the ideological preferences of citi-zens? This dataset holds the poten-tial for addressing these and manyother questions of interest to compar-ativists.

“The extent to which one

finds this dataset useful for

addressing whether or not

the data speak about the

nature, causes, and conse-

quences of democracy will

depend upon the one's

notions about the connection

between democracy and

high quality government

institutions.”

The extent to which one finds thisdataset useful for addressing whetheror not the data speak about thenature, causes, and consequences ofdemocracy will depend upon theone’s notions about the connectionbetween democracy and high qualitygovernment institutions. Those whoutilize this dataset should heed theQoG Institute’s caution that it will beupdated continuously, as the personsinvolved in this project are open tosuggestions that would help themimprove the dataset. Consolidatingsuch a wide variety of data shouldhelp ease the data collection burdenplaced on comparativists. The effortsof those at the QoG Institute shouldbe greeted with enthusiasm by any-one interested in the quality of gov-ernment in any region of the world.

APSA-CP Vol 16, No. 232 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2Datasets

TheDemocratizationDataset, 1974-2000Three concepts are at the core of thefield of democratization studies:Liberalization of Autocracy (LoA),Mode of Transition (MoT), andConsolidation of Democracy (CoD). Itis a surprising fact that despite theglobal character of the late 20th cen-tury's wave of democratization andthe numerous studies with an (inter-)regional scope, so far no rigorouslarger-N measures specifically tai-lored for these three concepts hasbeen developed. The DemocratizationData Set of Carsten Schneider &Philippe Schmitter, (Democratization,December 2004) aims at filling thisgap, thus allowing the testing ofdeep-seated assumptions andhypotheses on both the interplaybetween these concepts and theircauses and consequences.

Our data captures more than 30countries from 6 different regions ofthe world. We measure each of thethree core democratization conceptson an annual basis from 1974 to 2000and with multiple indicators, allstrongly rooted in the mainstreamdemocratization literature. The datageneration process was inspired bythe compelling critiques of existingprominent large-N measures ofdemocracy. We, thus, provide the dis-aggregated scores on each indicatorfor each country and year; explicitlyoutline and justify the aggregationprocedures; and keep transparentcoding rules. Furthermore, we gath-

ered a team of more than 20 countryexperts in one place; encouragedcoders to rely on more than the stan-dard data sources; and had eachcountry independently coded by twoexperts.

The data, plus coding instructions anditem-specific rules of interpretation,are available for download athttp://www.personal.ceu.hu/departs/personal/Carsten_Schneider/. More infois available from our article inDemocratization and from Schneider(2004): “Patterns of ConsolidatedDemocracies. Latin America andEurope Compared” (EuropeanUniversity Institute, PhD Dissertation).

Suggestions for improvement are wel-comed by Carsten Schneider, CentralEuropean University,[email protected] and PhilippeSchmitter, European University

Other Datasets

Data on USAIDDemocraticGovernanceProgramsThis dataset was compiled by a teamof scholars from the University ofVirginia, the University of Pittsburgh,Vanderbilt University, and WichitaState University: Steven Finkel, AníbalPérez-Liñán, Mitchell Seligson, andDinorah Azpuru, with substantial con-tributions by Andrew Green. It wascompiled under a contract fromUSAID to evaluate whether itsDemocratic Governance programshave had any impact on democratiza-tion. The dataset covers 195 coun-tries between 1990 and 2003: all theindependent states recognized by theUnited Nations Statistical Division,plus Palestine. The variables includemore than fifty indicators of democrat-

ic development (under the headingsof Elections and Electoral Processes,the Rule of Law, and Governance);another fifty variables containing esti-mates of USAID funds obligated toeach country in each year; and 42pooled time-series control variables,which fall under the headings ofInternational Factors and DemocraticDiffusion (6 variables), OfficialDevelopment Assistance from Non-U.S. Sources (4 variables), DomesticPolitical Conditions (5 variables),Economic Development (7 variables),Economic Performance (5 variables),Social Characteristics (10 variables),and Economic Dependence (5 vari-ables). There are also 36 cross-sec-tional control variables. The USAIDspending variables are particularlynoteworthy, as they were compiledwith the full backing of USAID and forthe first time break out amounts obli-gated for each country-year forDemocracy and Governance pro-grams, for sub-sectors of Democracyand Governance (Elections, Rule ofLaw, Civil Society, and Governance),and for Non-Democratic Governanceprograms such as Health or HumanRights. The data are also aggregatedto the regional and the sub-regionallevels for some programs. Thedataset, codebook, final report of theanalysis, and other materials areavailable at http://www.pitt.edu/~poli-tics/democracy/democracy.html.

33APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 News & Notes

I am pleased to announce that theNotre Dame Political Science Depart-ment has been chosen to continue toedit this Newsletter for a term of fouradditional years. In making its deci-sion on Notre Dame's bid, the selec-tion committee (Jonas Pontusson,Princeton, Chair; Evelyne Huber,UNC; and G. Bingham Powell,Rochester) praised the Notre Dameeditorial board for its attention to cen-tral issues in comparative politics, forthe efficiency and timeliness of itswork, and for bringing younger schol-ars and graduate students into theeditorial process. I would like to addmy own appreciation to the commit-tee's, and look forward to four moreyears of Notre Dame attention to cut-ting-edge issues in the Newsletter.

Sidney Tarrow

Notre Dame toContinue to Editthe APSA-CPNewsletter Studies in Comparative International

Development (SCID) has recentlymoved from Berkeley to the WatsonInstitute for International Studies atBrown University. One of the leadingjournals of development studies,SCID publishes articles on issuesconcerning political, social, economic,and environmental change at thelocal, national, and international lev-els. In addition to original researcharticles on all world regions, SCIDoccasionally publishes reviews thatsummarize and assess significant,thematically linked bodies of literatureand methodological essays that eval-uate and/or make an original contribu-tion to debates about the conduct ofsocial science research.

Please consider submitting your workto SCID if you have an article that fitsour profile. We plan to make thereview process a speedy one, so asto provide a shorter time betweensubmission and decision. The list ofscholars who make up the EditorialCollective that manages the journal atBrown, the external Editorial Board,and the guidelines for article submis-sion can all be found at our web site:http://watsoninstitute.org/ped/scid/

SCID has movedfrom Berkeley toBrown University

The Association of Religion DataArchives (ARDA), located atwww.thearda.com, provides freeaccess to high quality quantitativedata on religion. The ARDA allowsyou to interactively explore Americanand international data using onlinefeatures for generating national pro-files, maps, church membershipoverviews, denominational heritagetrees, tables, charts, and other sum-mary reports. Over 400 data files areavailable for online preview (includingthe International Social SurveyProgram and multiple years of theGeneral Social Survey) and virtuallyall can be downloaded free of charge.The ARDA has also developed aseries of tools for education. Learningmodules provide structured classassignments and the many onlinetools allow students to explore reli-gion across the globe or in their ownbackyard. Housed in the SocialScience Research Institute at thePennsylvania State University, theARDA is funded by the LillyEndowment and the John TempletonFoundation.

The Association ofReligion DataArchives (ARDA)

News & NotesAPSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 33

34 APSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2News & Notes

ComparativePolitics SectionBusiness Meetingat APSA

For a possible future APSA-CP fea-ture, I am seeking scholars and grad-uate students who have returned totheir country of origin to conduct fieldresearch. I would like to interview youon the challenges you faced, advan-tages encountered, biases avoided,and particular strategies adopted.

If you will be at APSA in Philadelphiaor would be willing to be interviewedat another venue or by telephone,please contact me [email protected].

Jenny Wüstenberg, University ofMaryland, College Park

Are you doing fieldwork in your homecountry?

The annual business meeting of theComparative Politics Section will beheld at the Pennsylvania ConventionCenter 102A on Friday, September 1,from 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm.

Graduate StudentsInvited to Publisha Feature Article inAPSA-CP

The editors of APSA-CP invite politi-cal science departments to contributedirectly to the newsletter by having ateam of their graduate studentsresearch and write an article aboutcurrent trends within the professionor subdiscipline of comparative poli-tics. Attractive articles would be muchlike the winter 2003 article on gradu-ate reading lists and the summer2005 article on trends in doctoral dis-sertations in comparative politics.Potential authors should discuss theirideas with the editors before begin-ning research.

The National Endowment forDemocracy (NED) invites applicationsto its Reagan-Fascell DemocracyFellows Program for the 2007-2008fellowship year. Established in 2001to enable activists, scholars, and jour-nalists from around the world to deep-en their understanding of democracyand enhance their ability to promotedemocratic change, the fellowshipprogram is based at NED'sInternational Forum for DemocraticStudies, in Washington, D.C. The pro-gram offers a practitioner track (3-5months) for activists to improvestrategies and techniques for buildingdemocracy abroad and to exchangeideas and experiences with counter-parts in the United States; and ascholarly track (5-10 months) forscholars and professors to conductoriginal research for publication.

Projects may focus on the political,social, economic, legal, and culturalaspects of democratic developmentand may include a range of method-ologies and approaches. The pro-gram is intended primarily to supportpractitioners and scholars from newand aspiring democracies.Distinguished scholars from theUnited States and other establisheddemocracies are also eligible toapply. Practitioners are expected tohave substantial experience workingto promote democracy. Scholars areexpected to have a doctorate, or aca-demic equivalent, at the time of appli-cation. The fellowship year beginsOctober 1 and runs through July 31,with major entry dates in October andMarch. All fellows receive a monthlystipend, health insurance, travelassistance, and research support.

To apply, please download the appli-cation booklet available online at

DemocracyFellowships

www.ned.org/forum/R-FApplication.pdfor visit www.ned.org and click on"Fellowship Programs." Applicationsfor fellowships in 2007-2008 must beemailed or postmarked no later thanNovember 1, 2006. Notification of thecompetition outcome is in April 2007.For questions, please email [email protected]

APSA-CP Vol 16, No. 2

APSA-CP NominationsExecutive Committee:

At-Large Members of the ExecutiveCommittee:

Isabela Mares, Stanford UniversityProfessor Mares's principal interestsinclude comparative political econo-my, comparative welfare states, andWest European politics. She has writ-ten about economic insecurity, socialprotection, and social policy reform.

Elisabeth Wood, Yale UniversityProfessor Wood focuses her researchon sexual violence during war, negoti-ated settlements to civil war, andredistribution and democratization indeveloping countries. She has writtenon insurgent collective action, civilwar, and democratic transitions inSouth Africa and El Salvador.

Elections will be held at the annualbusiness meeting of the Section.Alternative nominations may be madeat that meeting or by petition to thePresident. Petitions require the sup-port of at least five section members.

News & NotesAPSA-CP Vol 17, No. 2 35

The editors welcome suggestions ofother relatively new and potentiallyuseful datasets that should beannounced or reviewed in APSA-CP.Anyone interested in reviewing adataset for the newsletter, along thelines of Richard Ledet’s review of TheQuality of Governance Institute’sDataset, should contact MichaelCoppedge at [email protected].

We invite our readers to request hardcopies of back issues (beginning withthe winter 2003 newsletter issue) atthe cost of $1.50 per issue. Theyshould send their request(s) by emailto [email protected].

AwardsGregory Luebbert Book Award

Daniel Posner, UCLA, Institutionsand Ethnic Politics in Africa(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 2005).

Award Committee Chair:James Mahoney (NorthwesternUniversity).

Committee Members: Liesbet Hooghe (University of NorthCarolina) and Steven I. Wilkinson(Duke University).

Gregory Luebbert Article Award

Tulia Falleti, University ofPennsylvania, "A Sequential Theoryof Decentralization: Latin AmericanCases in Comparative Perspective,”American Political Science Review99(3):327-346 (August 2005).

Award Committee Chair:Maria Victoria Murillo (ColumbiaUniversity).

Committee Members:Kanchan Chandra (New YorkUniversity) and Kevin J. O'Brien(University of California, Berkeley).

Sage Publications Best APSAPaper Award

Margarita Estevez-Abe, HarvardUniversity, "Labor Markets, PublicPolicies and Gender Equality: TheVarieties of Capitalism Perspectiveand Beyond.”

Honorable Mention to James Gibson,Washington University, "LandInequality and Squatting in SouthAfrica: Judging Historical Injustice."

Award Committee Chair:David D. Laitin (Stanford University).

Editors’ Notes

Committee Members:Kenneth M. Roberts (CornellUniversity) and Mark Hallerberg(Emory University).

Dataset Award

David Cingranelli, SUNY, Binghamton,and David Richards, University ofMemphis, for the CIRI Human Rightsdataset.

Award Committee Chair:Philip A. Schrodt (University ofKansas).

Committee Members: Russell J. Dalton (University ofCalifornia, Irvine) and Lyle A. Scruggs(University of Connecticut).

How to Subscribe

Subscription to the APSA-CP Newsletteris a benefit to members of the OrganizedSection in Comparative Politics of theAmerican Political Science Association. Tojoin the section, check the appropriatebox when joining the APSA or renewingyour Association membership. Sectiondues are currently $8 annually, with a $2surcharge for foreign addresses. Theprinting and mailing of the Newsletter ispaid for out of member dues. To joinAPSA, contact:

American Political Science Association1527 New Hampshire Ave., NWWashington, DC 20036, USA

Telephone: (202) 483-2512Facsimile: (202) 483-2657e-mail: [email protected]

Changes of address for the Newslettertake place automatically when memberschange their address with the APSA.Please do not send change-of-addressinformation to the Newsletter.

APSA-CP NewsletterUniversity of Notre DameDecio Hall, Box “D”Notre Dame, IN 46556USA

Non Profit OrganizationU.S. Postage

PaidNotre Dame Indiana

Permit No.10

In this Newsletter:

Guest Essay 1 Class Politics is Dead! Long Live Class Politics! A Political Economy Perspectiveon the New Partisan Politics, Torben Iversen

Symposium:Should Everyone Do Fieldwork? 7Of Course Generalize, But How? Returning to Middle-Range Theory inComparative Politics, Daniel Ziblatt 8Complements in the Quest for Understanding Comparative Politics,Bruce Bueno de Mesquita 11The Geography of Generalization, Valerie Bunce 14Arguments about Theory… Again, Kenneth A. Shepsle 18

Book Review: Philip Tetlock, Expert Political Judgment: How Good IsIt? How Can We Know? 21

Kurt Weyland 21Scott Page 23

Controversies 25On Tarrow's Space, Matthew Kocher and David Laitin 25

Datasets 29The Quality of Government Institute's Cross-Sectional and Cross-Sectional TimeSeries Dataset, Richard Ledet 29Other Datasets 32

News and Notes 33Announcements 33Awards 35

Copyright 2005 American Political Science Association. Published with financial assistancefrom the members of the Organized Section in Comparative Politics, the Helen KelloggInstitute for International Studies, the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, and theGraduate School of Arts and Sciences of the University of Notre Dame du Lac.

Volume 17, Issue 2 Summer 2006

apsa - cp · 2018-12-19 · apsa-cp vol 17, no. 2 3 new partisan politics it would be foolhardy to...

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