Jonathan Ned Katz
Biographic Data
| ID | 242345 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jonathan Ned Katz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jonathan Ned |
| FAMILY NAME | Katz |
| SIGNATURE | KATZ J N |
| AFFILIATIONS | California Institute of Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5287-3503 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4799 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
The Essential Role of Statistical Inference in Evaluating Electoral Systems: A Response to DeFord et al
Katz, King, and Rosenblatt (2020, American Political Science Review 114, 164–178) introduces a theoretical framework for understanding redistricting and electoral systems, built on basic statistical and social science principles of inference. DeFord et al . (2021, Political Analysis , this issue) instead focuses solely on descriptive measures, which lead to the problems identified in our article. In this article, we illustrate the essential role …
Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Evaluations of Partisan Fairness in District-Based Democracies
We clarify the theoretical foundations of partisan fairness standards for district-based democratic electoral systems, including essential assumptions and definitions not previously recognized, formalized, or in some cases even discussed. We also offer extensive empirical evidence for assumptions with observable implications. We cover partisan symmetry, the most commonly accepted fairness standard, and other perspectives. Throughout, we follow a …
The invention of heterosexuality
Constitutions of Exception: The Constitutional Foundations of the Interruption of Executive and Legislative Function
Constitutions of exception are commonplace legal regimes that prescribe conditions and procedures under which the constitution itself can be legally suspended. Often the suspension of the constitution involves the interruption of scheduled elections for the national legislature and/or the chief executive. Military participation in civilian government and the derogation of civil liberties and rights are also typical. There is a debate in the liter…
An Audit of Political Behavior Research
What are the most important concepts in the political behavior literature? Have experiments supplanted surveys as the dominant method in political behavior research? What role does the American National Election Studies (ANES) play in this literature? We utilize a content analysis of over 1,100 quantitative articles on American mass political behavior published between 1980 and 2009 to address these questions. We then supplement this with a secon…
Reflections from the Co-Editors
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Introduction to the Virtual Issue
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. As you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Of Nickell Bias and its Cures: Comment on Gaibulloev, Sandler, and Sul
Gaibulloev, Sandler, and Sul (2014) (here after GSS) present two methodological suggestions for estimating dynamic panel models with fixed effects and provide an empirical application using them. Our interest is only in their methodological suggestions, so we do not discuss the empirical application here. One of their methodological suggestions is that analysts account for cross-sectional dependence by adjoining to the model a common factor which…
Estimating Partisan Bias of the Electoral College Under Proposed Changes in Elector Apportionment
In the election for President of the United States, the Electoral College is the body whose members vote to elect the President directly. Each state sends a number of delegates equal to its total number of representatives and senators in Congress; all but two states (Nebraska and Maine) assign electors pledged to the candidate that wins the state's plurality vote. We investigate the effect on presidential elections if states were to assign their …
An Empirical Bayes Approach to Estimating Ordinal Treatment Effects
Ordinal variables—categorical variables with a defined order to the categories, but without equal spacing between them—are frequently used in social science applications. Although a good deal of research exists on the proper modeling of ordinal response variables, there is not a clear directive as to how to model ordinal treatment variables. The usual approaches found in the literature for using ordinal treatment variables are either to use fully…
Modeling Dynamics in Time-Series–Cross-Section Political Economy Data
This article deals with a variety of dynamic issues in the analysis of time-series–cross-section (TSCS) data. Although the issues raised are general, we focus on applications to comparative political economy, which frequently uses TSCS data. We begin with a discussion of specification and lay out the theoretical differences implied by the various types of dynamic models that can be estimated. It is shown that there is nothing pernicious in using …
Correcting for Survey Misreports Using Auxiliary Information with an Application to Estimating Turnout
Misreporting is a problem that plagues researchers who use survey data. In this article, we develop a parametric model that corrects for misclassified binary responses using information on the misreporting patterns obtained from auxiliary data sources. The model is implemented within the Bayesian framework via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and can be easily extended to address other problems exhibited by survey data, such as missing res…
The Invention of Heterosexuality
Random Coefficient Models for Time-Series—Cross-Section Data: Monte Carlo Experiments
This article considers random coefficient models (RCMs) for time-series—cross-section data. These models allow for unit to unit variation in the model parameters. The heart of the article compares the finite sample properties of the fully pooled estimator, the unit by unit (unpooled) estimator, and the (maximum likelihood) RCM estimator. The maximum likelihood estimator RCM performs well, even where the data were generated so that the RCM would b…
Gerrymandering Roll Calls in Congress, 1879–2000
We argue that the standard toolbox used in electoral studies to assess the bias and responsiveness of electoral systems can also be used to assess the bias and responsiveness of legislative systems. We consider which items in the toolbox are the most appropriate for use in the legislative setting, then apply them to estimate levels of bias in the U.S. House from 1879 to 2000. Our results indicate a systematic bias in favor of the majority party o…
Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique
La pérennité des sexes et la pérennité des esclaves et des maîtres proviennent de la même croyance.[The endurance of the sexes and the endurance of slaves and masters derive from the same belief.]-Monique Wittig, "La catégorie de sexe"The whole is the truth, and the whole is false. -Herbert Marcuse, Reason and RevolutionThe essays here assembled, variegated in methodology, tone, and texture, are the fruit of a memorial conference in honor of Moni…
Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan N. Katz. 1995. “What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data.” American Political Science Review 89 (September): 634–47 Cited 398 times
Much as we would like to believe that the high citation count for this article is due to the brilliance and clarity of our argument, it is more likely that the count is due to our being in the right place (that is, the right part of the discipline) at the right time. In the 1960s and 1970s, serious quantitative analysis was used primarily in the study of American politics. But since the 1980s it has spread to the study of both comparative politic…
Standard Voting Power Indexes Do Not Work: An Empirical Analysis
Voting power indexes such as that of Banzhaf are derived, explicitly or implicitly, from the assumption that all votes are equally likely (i.e., random voting). That assumption implies that the probability of a vote being decisive in a jurisdiction with n voters is proportional to 1/√ n . In this article the authors show how this hypothesis has been empirically tested and rejected using data from various US and European elections. They find that …
Elbridge Gerry's Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution
The Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions, beginning with Baker v. Carr in 1962, had far more than jurisprudential consequences. They sparked a massive wave of extraordinary redistricting in the mid-1960s. Both state legislative and congressional districts were redrawn more comprehensively - by far - than at any previous time in America's history. Moreover, they changed what would happen at law should a state government fail to enact a new di…
A Fast, Easy, and Efficient Estimator for Multiparty Electoral Data
Katz and King have previously developed a model for predicting or explaining aggregate electoral results in multiparty democracies. Their model is, in principle, analogous to what least-squares regression provides American political researchers in that two-party system. Katz and King applied their model to three-party elections in England and revealed a variety of new features of incumbency advantage and sources of party support. Although the mat…
Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water: A Comment on Green, Kim, and Yoon
Donald P. Green, Soo Yeon Kim, and David H. Yoon argue that many findings in quantitative international relations that use the dyad-year design are flawed. In particular, they argue that the effect of democracy on both trade and conflict has been vastly overstated, that researchers have ignored unobserved heterogeneity between the various dyads, and that heterogeneity can be best modeled by “fixed effects,” that is, a model that includes a separa…
The Reapportionment Revolution and Bias in U. S. Congressional Elections
We develop a formal model of the redistricting process that highlights the importance of two factors: first, partisan or bipartisan control of the redistricting process; second, the nature of the reversionary outcome, should the state legislature and governor fail to agree on a new districting plan. Using this model, we predict the levels of partisan bias and responsiveness that should be observed under districting plans adopted under various con…
A Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data
We propose a comprehensive statistical model for analyzing multiparty, district-level elections. This model, which provides a tool for comparative politics research analogous to that which regression analysis provides in the American two-party context, can be used to explain or predict how geographic distributions of electoral results depend upon economic conditions, neighborhood ethnic compositions, campaign spending, and other features of the e…
Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable
Researchers typically analyze time-series-cross-section data with a binary dependent \nvariable (BTSCS) using ordinary logit or probit. However, BTSCS observations are \nlikely to violate the independence assumption of the ordinary logit or probit statistical \nmodel. It is well known that if the observations are temporally related that the results of \nan ordinary logit or probit analysis may be misleading. In this paper, we provide a simple \nd…
Nuisance vs. Substance: Specifying and Estimating Time-Series-Cross-Section Models
In a previous article we showed that ordinary least squares with panel corrected standard errors is superior to the Parks generalized least squares approach to the estimation of time-series-cross-section models. In this article we compare our proposed method with another leading technique, Kmenta's “cross-sectionally heteroskedastic and timewise autocorrelated” model. This estimator uses generalized least squares to correct for both panel heteros…
What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data
We examine some issues in the estimation of time-series cross-section models, calling into question the conclusions of many published studies, particularly in the field of comparative political economy. We show that the generalized least squares approach of Parks produces standard errors that lead to extreme overconfidence, often underestimating variability by 50% or more. We also provide an alternative estimator of the standard errors that is co…
Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable
Researchers typically analyze time-series-cross-section data with a binary dependent \nvariable (BTSCS) using ordinary logit or probit. However, BTSCS observations are \nlikely to violate the independence assumption of the ordinary logit or probit statistical \nmodel. It is well known that if the observations are temporally related that the results of \nan ordinary logit or probit analysis may be misleading. In this paper, we provide a simple \nd…
Nuisance vs. Substance: Specifying and Estimating Time-Series-Cross-Section Models
In a previous article we showed that ordinary least squares with panel corrected standard errors is superior to the Parks generalized least squares approach to the estimation of time-series-cross-section models. In this article we compare our proposed method with another leading technique, Kmenta's “cross-sectionally heteroskedastic and timewise autocorrelated” model. This estimator uses generalized least squares to correct for both panel heteros…
Modeling Dynamics in Time-Series–Cross-Section Political Economy Data
This article deals with a variety of dynamic issues in the analysis of time-series–cross-section (TSCS) data. Although the issues raised are general, we focus on applications to comparative political economy, which frequently uses TSCS data. We begin with a discussion of specification and lay out the theoretical differences implied by the various types of dynamic models that can be estimated. It is shown that there is nothing pernicious in using …
Why Did the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. House Elections Grow
Theory: A simple rational entry argument suggests that the value of incumbency \nconsists not just of a direct effect, reflecting the value of resources (such as staff) \nattached to legislative office, but also of an indirect effect, reflecting the fact that \nstronger challengers are less likely to contest incumbent-held seats. The indirect \neffect is the product of a scare-off effect-the ability of incumbents to scare off \nhigh-quality chall…
Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water: A Comment on Green, Kim, and Yoon
Donald P. Green, Soo Yeon Kim, and David H. Yoon argue that many findings in quantitative international relations that use the dyad-year design are flawed. In particular, they argue that the effect of democracy on both trade and conflict has been vastly overstated, that researchers have ignored unobserved heterogeneity between the various dyads, and that heterogeneity can be best modeled by “fixed effects,” that is, a model that includes a separa…
A Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data
We propose a comprehensive statistical model for analyzing multiparty, district-level elections. This model, which provides a tool for comparative politics research analogous to that which regression analysis provides in the American two-party context, can be used to explain or predict how geographic distributions of electoral results depend upon economic conditions, neighborhood ethnic compositions, campaign spending, and other features of the e…
Careerism, Committee Assignments, and the Electoral Connection
Most scholars agree that members of Congress are strongly motivated by their desire for reelection. This assumption implies that members of Congress adopt institutions, rules, and norms of behavior in part to serve their electoral interests. Direct tests of the electoral connection are rare, however, because significant, exogenous changes in the electoral environment are difficult to identify. We develop and test an electoral rationale for the no…
Random Coefficient Models for Time-Series—Cross-Section Data: Monte Carlo Experiments
This article considers random coefficient models (RCMs) for time-series—cross-section data. These models allow for unit to unit variation in the model parameters. The heart of the article compares the finite sample properties of the fully pooled estimator, the unit by unit (unpooled) estimator, and the (maximum likelihood) RCM estimator. The maximum likelihood estimator RCM performs well, even where the data were generated so that the RCM would b…
Standard Voting Power Indexes Do Not Work: An Empirical Analysis
Voting power indexes such as that of Banzhaf are derived, explicitly or implicitly, from the assumption that all votes are equally likely (i.e., random voting). That assumption implies that the probability of a vote being decisive in a jurisdiction with n voters is proportional to 1/√ n . In this article the authors show how this hypothesis has been empirically tested and rejected using data from various US and European elections. They find that …
Correcting for Survey Misreports Using Auxiliary Information with an Application to Estimating Turnout
Misreporting is a problem that plagues researchers who use survey data. In this article, we develop a parametric model that corrects for misclassified binary responses using information on the misreporting patterns obtained from auxiliary data sources. The model is implemented within the Bayesian framework via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and can be easily extended to address other problems exhibited by survey data, such as missing res…
An Empirical Bayes Approach to Estimating Ordinal Treatment Effects
Ordinal variables—categorical variables with a defined order to the categories, but without equal spacing between them—are frequently used in social science applications. Although a good deal of research exists on the proper modeling of ordinal response variables, there is not a clear directive as to how to model ordinal treatment variables. The usual approaches found in the literature for using ordinal treatment variables are either to use fully…
Theoretical Foundations and Empirical Evaluations of Partisan Fairness in District-Based Democracies
We clarify the theoretical foundations of partisan fairness standards for district-based democratic electoral systems, including essential assumptions and definitions not previously recognized, formalized, or in some cases even discussed. We also offer extensive empirical evidence for assumptions with observable implications. We cover partisan symmetry, the most commonly accepted fairness standard, and other perspectives. Throughout, we follow a …
A Fast, Easy, and Efficient Estimator for Multiparty Electoral Data
Katz and King have previously developed a model for predicting or explaining aggregate electoral results in multiparty democracies. Their model is, in principle, analogous to what least-squares regression provides American political researchers in that two-party system. Katz and King applied their model to three-party elections in England and revealed a variety of new features of incumbency advantage and sources of party support. Although the mat…
The Reapportionment Revolution and Bias in U. S. Congressional Elections
We develop a formal model of the redistricting process that highlights the importance of two factors: first, partisan or bipartisan control of the redistricting process; second, the nature of the reversionary outcome, should the state legislature and governor fail to agree on a new districting plan. Using this model, we predict the levels of partisan bias and responsiveness that should be observed under districting plans adopted under various con…
Of Nickell Bias and its Cures: Comment on Gaibulloev, Sandler, and Sul
Gaibulloev, Sandler, and Sul (2014) (here after GSS) present two methodological suggestions for estimating dynamic panel models with fixed effects and provide an empirical application using them. Our interest is only in their methodological suggestions, so we do not discuss the empirical application here. One of their methodological suggestions is that analysts account for cross-sectional dependence by adjoining to the model a common factor which…
Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique
La pérennité des sexes et la pérennité des esclaves et des maîtres proviennent de la même croyance.[The endurance of the sexes and the endurance of slaves and masters derive from the same belief.]-Monique Wittig, "La catégorie de sexe"The whole is the truth, and the whole is false. -Herbert Marcuse, Reason and RevolutionThe essays here assembled, variegated in methodology, tone, and texture, are the fruit of a memorial conference in honor of Moni…
Gerrymandering Roll Calls in Congress, 1879–2000
We argue that the standard toolbox used in electoral studies to assess the bias and responsiveness of electoral systems can also be used to assess the bias and responsiveness of legislative systems. We consider which items in the toolbox are the most appropriate for use in the legislative setting, then apply them to estimate levels of bias in the U.S. House from 1879 to 2000. Our results indicate a systematic bias in favor of the majority party o…
An Audit of Political Behavior Research
What are the most important concepts in the political behavior literature? Have experiments supplanted surveys as the dominant method in political behavior research? What role does the American National Election Studies (ANES) play in this literature? We utilize a content analysis of over 1,100 quantitative articles on American mass political behavior published between 1980 and 2009 to address these questions. We then supplement this with a secon…
Estimating Partisan Bias of the Electoral College Under Proposed Changes in Elector Apportionment
In the election for President of the United States, the Electoral College is the body whose members vote to elect the President directly. Each state sends a number of delegates equal to its total number of representatives and senators in Congress; all but two states (Nebraska and Maine) assign electors pledged to the candidate that wins the state's plurality vote. We investigate the effect on presidential elections if states were to assign their …
Why There Is Something: The Anthropic Principle and Improbable Events
The Anthropic Principle, in use by physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists, is currently under consideration by philosophers. This principle, in its various forms, appeals to man's existence as a constraint on our determination of natural laws and natural constants, as a principle of prediction, and, in its strongest form, as a principle of explanation which sanctions an argument for the universe being a product of design. What I shall endeavou…
The Essential Role of Statistical Inference in Evaluating Electoral Systems: A Response to DeFord et al
Katz, King, and Rosenblatt (2020, American Political Science Review 114, 164–178) introduces a theoretical framework for understanding redistricting and electoral systems, built on basic statistical and social science principles of inference. DeFord et al . (2021, Political Analysis , this issue) instead focuses solely on descriptive measures, which lead to the problems identified in our article. In this article, we illustrate the essential role …
The One That Got Away: Leslie's Universes
According to the jacket cover, John Leslie's Universes is "the first book by a philosopher on these controversial affairs." Sadly, I must report, the controversy has gotten the better of his philosophy. Leslie's contribution to this area is merely to see, within the dispute, a narrow window through which to promote his own curious view of extreme axiarchism. This alone would not disturb me, were it not for the apparent disdain with which Leslie d…
Rational Common Ground in the Sociology of Knowledge
Wilson's Defense of the D-N Model
The study of philosophy has no leading edge. Scholars may fruitfully explore past eras and superceded theories, revise their views of historic figures, modify inadequate theories, defend successful yet overlooked ideas, salvage the wheat from the chaff. A novel defense of previously discredited arguments could lead to new insights, and this is so even if that defense proved ultimately unsuccessful. But, I believe, one can profitably defend some p…
Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore (1840-1914)
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Why There Is Something: The Anthropic Principle and Improbable Events
The Anthropic Principle, in use by physicists, astronomers, and cosmologists, is currently under consideration by philosophers. This principle, in its various forms, appeals to man's existence as a constraint on our determination of natural laws and natural constants, as a principle of prediction, and, in its strongest form, as a principle of explanation which sanctions an argument for the universe being a product of design. What I shall endeavou…
Rational Common Ground in the Sociology of Knowledge
The One That Got Away: Leslie's Universes
According to the jacket cover, John Leslie's Universes is "the first book by a philosopher on these controversial affairs." Sadly, I must report, the controversy has gotten the better of his philosophy. Leslie's contribution to this area is merely to see, within the dispute, a narrow window through which to promote his own curious view of extreme axiarchism. This alone would not disturb me, were it not for the apparent disdain with which Leslie d…
What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data
We examine some issues in the estimation of time-series cross-section models, calling into question the conclusions of many published studies, particularly in the field of comparative political economy. We show that the generalized least squares approach of Parks produces standard errors that lead to extreme overconfidence, often underestimating variability by 50% or more. We also provide an alternative estimator of the standard errors that is co…
Nuisance vs. Substance: Specifying and Estimating Time-Series-Cross-Section Models
In a previous article we showed that ordinary least squares with panel corrected standard errors is superior to the Parks generalized least squares approach to the estimation of time-series-cross-section models. In this article we compare our proposed method with another leading technique, Kmenta's “cross-sectionally heteroskedastic and timewise autocorrelated” model. This estimator uses generalized least squares to correct for both panel heteros…
Why Did the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. House Elections Grow
Theory: A simple rational entry argument suggests that the value of incumbency \nconsists not just of a direct effect, reflecting the value of resources (such as staff) \nattached to legislative office, but also of an indirect effect, reflecting the fact that \nstronger challengers are less likely to contest incumbent-held seats. The indirect \neffect is the product of a scare-off effect-the ability of incumbents to scare off \nhigh-quality chall…
Careerism, Committee Assignments, and the Electoral Connection
Most scholars agree that members of Congress are strongly motivated by their desire for reelection. This assumption implies that members of Congress adopt institutions, rules, and norms of behavior in part to serve their electoral interests. Direct tests of the electoral connection are rare, however, because significant, exogenous changes in the electoral environment are difficult to identify. We develop and test an electoral rationale for the no…
Taking Time Seriously: Time-Series-Cross-Section Analysis with a Binary Dependent Variable
Researchers typically analyze time-series-cross-section data with a binary dependent \nvariable (BTSCS) using ordinary logit or probit. However, BTSCS observations are \nlikely to violate the independence assumption of the ordinary logit or probit statistical \nmodel. It is well known that if the observations are temporally related that the results of \nan ordinary logit or probit analysis may be misleading. In this paper, we provide a simple \nd…
The Reapportionment Revolution and Bias in U. S. Congressional Elections
We develop a formal model of the redistricting process that highlights the importance of two factors: first, partisan or bipartisan control of the redistricting process; second, the nature of the reversionary outcome, should the state legislature and governor fail to agree on a new districting plan. Using this model, we predict the levels of partisan bias and responsiveness that should be observed under districting plans adopted under various con…
A Statistical Model for Multiparty Electoral Data
We propose a comprehensive statistical model for analyzing multiparty, district-level elections. This model, which provides a tool for comparative politics research analogous to that which regression analysis provides in the American two-party context, can be used to explain or predict how geographic distributions of electoral results depend upon economic conditions, neighborhood ethnic compositions, campaign spending, and other features of the e…
Throwing Out the Baby with the Bath Water: A Comment on Green, Kim, and Yoon
Donald P. Green, Soo Yeon Kim, and David H. Yoon argue that many findings in quantitative international relations that use the dyad-year design are flawed. In particular, they argue that the effect of democracy on both trade and conflict has been vastly overstated, that researchers have ignored unobserved heterogeneity between the various dyads, and that heterogeneity can be best modeled by “fixed effects,” that is, a model that includes a separa…
Elbridge Gerry's Salamander: The Electoral Consequences of the Reapportionment Revolution
The Supreme Court's reapportionment decisions, beginning with Baker v. Carr in 1962, had far more than jurisprudential consequences. They sparked a massive wave of extraordinary redistricting in the mid-1960s. Both state legislative and congressional districts were redrawn more comprehensively - by far - than at any previous time in America's history. Moreover, they changed what would happen at law should a state government fail to enact a new di…
A Fast, Easy, and Efficient Estimator for Multiparty Electoral Data
Katz and King have previously developed a model for predicting or explaining aggregate electoral results in multiparty democracies. Their model is, in principle, analogous to what least-squares regression provides American political researchers in that two-party system. Katz and King applied their model to three-party elections in England and revealed a variety of new features of incumbency advantage and sources of party support. Although the mat…
Standard Voting Power Indexes Do Not Work: An Empirical Analysis
Voting power indexes such as that of Banzhaf are derived, explicitly or implicitly, from the assumption that all votes are equally likely (i.e., random voting). That assumption implies that the probability of a vote being decisive in a jurisdiction with n voters is proportional to 1/√ n . In this article the authors show how this hypothesis has been empirically tested and rejected using data from various US and European elections. They find that …
Nathaniel Beck and Jonathan N. Katz. 1995. “What to Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data.” American Political Science Review 89 (September): 634–47 Cited 398 times
Much as we would like to believe that the high citation count for this article is due to the brilliance and clarity of our argument, it is more likely that the count is due to our being in the right place (that is, the right part of the discipline) at the right time. In the 1960s and 1970s, serious quantitative analysis was used primarily in the study of American politics. But since the 1980s it has spread to the study of both comparative politic…
The Invention of Heterosexuality
Random Coefficient Models for Time-Series—Cross-Section Data: Monte Carlo Experiments
This article considers random coefficient models (RCMs) for time-series—cross-section data. These models allow for unit to unit variation in the model parameters. The heart of the article compares the finite sample properties of the fully pooled estimator, the unit by unit (unpooled) estimator, and the (maximum likelihood) RCM estimator. The maximum likelihood estimator RCM performs well, even where the data were generated so that the RCM would b…
Gerrymandering Roll Calls in Congress, 1879–2000
We argue that the standard toolbox used in electoral studies to assess the bias and responsiveness of electoral systems can also be used to assess the bias and responsiveness of legislative systems. We consider which items in the toolbox are the most appropriate for use in the legislative setting, then apply them to estimate levels of bias in the U.S. House from 1879 to 2000. Our results indicate a systematic bias in favor of the majority party o…
Monique Wittig's Materialist Utopia and Radical Critique
La pérennité des sexes et la pérennité des esclaves et des maîtres proviennent de la même croyance.[The endurance of the sexes and the endurance of slaves and masters derive from the same belief.]-Monique Wittig, "La catégorie de sexe"The whole is the truth, and the whole is false. -Herbert Marcuse, Reason and RevolutionThe essays here assembled, variegated in methodology, tone, and texture, are the fruit of a memorial conference in honor of Moni…
Correcting for Survey Misreports Using Auxiliary Information with an Application to Estimating Turnout
Misreporting is a problem that plagues researchers who use survey data. In this article, we develop a parametric model that corrects for misclassified binary responses using information on the misreporting patterns obtained from auxiliary data sources. The model is implemented within the Bayesian framework via Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods and can be easily extended to address other problems exhibited by survey data, such as missing res…
An Empirical Bayes Approach to Estimating Ordinal Treatment Effects
Ordinal variables—categorical variables with a defined order to the categories, but without equal spacing between them—are frequently used in social science applications. Although a good deal of research exists on the proper modeling of ordinal response variables, there is not a clear directive as to how to model ordinal treatment variables. The usual approaches found in the literature for using ordinal treatment variables are either to use fully…
Modeling Dynamics in Time-Series–Cross-Section Political Economy Data
This article deals with a variety of dynamic issues in the analysis of time-series–cross-section (TSCS) data. Although the issues raised are general, we focus on applications to comparative political economy, which frequently uses TSCS data. We begin with a discussion of specification and lay out the theoretical differences implied by the various types of dynamic models that can be estimated. It is shown that there is nothing pernicious in using …
Estimating Partisan Bias of the Electoral College Under Proposed Changes in Elector Apportionment
In the election for President of the United States, the Electoral College is the body whose members vote to elect the President directly. Each state sends a number of delegates equal to its total number of representatives and senators in Congress; all but two states (Nebraska and Maine) assign electors pledged to the candidate that wins the state's plurality vote. We investigate the effect on presidential elections if states were to assign their …
Political science (17 works) · Computer Science (16 works) · Mathematics (16 works) · Economics (15 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Econometrics (11 works) · Statistics (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Politics (10 works)