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Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis: The Case of the Origins of Proportional Representation

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  • KREUZER, MARCUS

Abstract

Political scientists commonly draw on history but often do not read actual historians carefully. This limited engagement with historians, and with contextual information more generally, contributes to a loss of historical knowledge that can undermine the validity of quantitative analysis. This article makes this argument by means of an examination of the qualitative evidence underlying the important quantitative arguments about the origins of electoral systems advanced by Carles Boix and by Thomas Cusack, Torben Iversen, and David Soskice. The article explores how their respective attention to historical knowledge affects the quality of their data, the plausibility of their hypotheses, and, ultimately, the robustness of their statistical findings. It also analyzes how such knowledge sheds new light on the causal direction between institutions and their economic effects.

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  • Kreuzer, Marcus, 2010. "Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis: The Case of the Origins of Proportional Representation," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(2), pages 369-392, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:104:y:2010:i:02:p:369-392_00
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    Cited by:

    1. David A. Bateman & Dawn Langan Teele, 2020. "A developmental approach to historical causal inference," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 253-279, December.
    2. Jason Seawright, 2016. "The Case for Selecting Cases That Are Deviant or Extreme on the Independent Variable," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 45(3), pages 493-525, August.
    3. Stroh, Alexander & Elischer, Sebastian & Erdmann, Gero, 2012. "Origins and Outcomes of Electoral Institutions in African Hybrid Regimes: A Comparative Perspective," GIGA Working Papers 197, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    4. Sophia Dawkins, 2021. "The problem of the missing dead," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(5), pages 1098-1116, September.
    5. Christopher Prosser, 2016. "Second order electoral rules and national party systems: The Duvergerian effects of European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 17(3), pages 366-386, September.
    6. Santucci, Jack, 2017. "Bad for Party Discipline: Why Unions Attacked the Single Transferable Vote in Cincinnati," SocArXiv aqn5y, Center for Open Science.
    7. Carol Mershon, 2020. "Challenging the wisdom on preferential proportional representation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(1), pages 168-182, January.

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