Methods and Models
A Guide to the Empirical Analysis of Formal Models in Political Science

This book explores how empirical analysis has, can, and should be used to evaluate formal models in political science.

Rebecca B. Morton (Author)

9780521633949, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 28 August 1999

340 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm, 0.5 kg

At present much of political science consists of a large body of formal mathematical work that remains largely unexplored empirically and an expanding use of sophisticated statistical techniques. While there are examples of noteworthy efforts to bridge the gap between these, there is still a need for much more cooperative work between formal theorists and empirical researchers in the discipline. This book explores how empirical analysis has, can, and should be used to evaluate formal models in political science. The book is intended to be a guide for active and future political scientists who are confronting the issues of empirical analysis with formal models in their work and as a basis for a needed dialogue between empirical and formal theoretical researchers in political science. These developments, if combined, are potentially a basis for a new revolution in political science.

Part I. Introduction: 1. Political science's dilemma
Part II. Formal Models in Political Science: 2. What makes a model formal?
3. The variety of formal models
Part III. Empirical Evaluation of Formal Models: 4. Fundamentals of empirical evaluation
5. Evaluating assumptions
6. Evaluating predictions: equilibria, disequilibria, and multiequilibria
7. Evaluating relationship predictions
8. Evaluating alternative models
Part IV. A Second Revolution: 9. The present and the future
10. References.

Subject Areas: Political science & theory [JPA]