Tasha Fairfield
Biographic Data
| ID | 793229 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tasha Fairfield |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tasha |
| FAMILY NAME | Fairfield |
| SIGNATURE | FAIRFIELD T |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1824-6386 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 229 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Bayesian reasoning for qualitative replication analysis: Examples from climate politics
This paper demonstrates how Bayesian reasoning can be used for an analog of replication analysis with qualitative research that conducts inference to best explanation. We overview the basic mechanics of Bayesian reasoning with qualitative evidence and apply our approach to recent research on climate change politics, a matter of major importance that is beginning to attract greater interest in the discipline. Our re-analysis of illustrative eviden…
Social Inquiry and Bayesian Inference: Rethinking Qualitative Research
Fairfield and Charman provide a modern, rigorous and intuitive methodology for case-study research to help social scientists and analysts make better inferences from qualitative evidence. The book develops concrete guidelines for conducting inference to best explanation given incomplete information; no previous exposure to Bayesian analysis or specialized mathematical skills are needed. Topics covered include constructing rival hypotheses that ar…
Social Inquiry and Bayesian Inference: Rethinking Qualitative Research
Understanding Bayesianism: Fundamentals for Process Tracers
Bayesian analysis has emerged as a rapidly expanding frontier in qualitative methods. Recent work in this journal has voiced various doubts regarding how to implement Bayesian process tracing and the costs versus benefits of this approach. In this response, we articulate a very different understanding of the state of the method and a much more positive view of what Bayesian reasoning can do to strengthen qualitative social science. Drawing on for…
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications
In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked ser…
A Dialogue with the Data: The Bayesian Foundations of Iterative Research in Qualitative Social Science
We advance efforts to explicate and improve inference in qualitative research that iterates between theory development, data collection, and data analysis, rather than proceeding linearly from hypothesizing to testing. We draw on the school of Bayesian “probability as extended logic,” where probabilities represent rational degrees of belief in propositions given limited information, to provide a solid foundation for iterative research that has be…
Explicit Bayesian Analysis for Process Tracing: Guidelines, Opportunities, and Caveats
Bayesian probability holds the potential to serve as an important bridge between qualitative and quantitative methodology. Yet whereas Bayesian statistical techniques have been successfully elaborated for quantitative research, applying Bayesian probability to qualitative research remains an open frontier. This paper advances the burgeoning literature on Bayesian process tracing by drawing on expositions of Bayesian “probability as extended logic…
Redistribution Under the Right in Latin America: Electoral Competition and Organized Actors in Policymaking
Unexpected social policy expansion and progressive tax reforms initiated by right-wing governments in Latin America highlight the need for further theory development on the politics of redistribution. We focus on electoral competition for low-income voters in conjunction with the power of organized actors—both business and social movements. We argue that electoral competition motivates redistribution under left-wing and right-wing incumbents alik…
Private Wealth and Public Revenue in Latin America: Business Power and Tax Politics
Inequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic concepts of business's instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after economic liberalization. In Chile, business's multiple sources of…
Structural power in comparative political economy: Perspectives from policy formulation in Latin America
Structural power is a critical variable that merits more extensive and more explicit attention in Latin American political economy and in comparative politics more broadly. Assessing structural power in conjunction with its counterpart, instrumental power, can provide strong leverage for explaining variation in policy outcomes that affect business interests. However, structural power must be carefully defined and operationalized in order to captu…
Going Where the Money Is: Strategies for Taxing Economic Elites in Unequal Democracies
Business Power and Protest: Argentina’s Agricultural Producers Protest in Comparative Context
Does Patronage Still Drive Politics for the Rural Poor in the Developing World? A Comparative Perspective from the Livestock Sector
Is the analysis of patron-client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on 'social capital'? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populat…
Business Power and Tax Reform: Taxing Income and Profits in Chile and Argentina
This article examines efforts to increase taxation of highly concentrated, undertapped income and profits in Latin America in the aftermath of structural adjustment. Argentina has advanced further than Chile in two policy areas: corporate taxation, which taps firm-level profits; and tax agency access to bank information, which helps reduce income tax evasion. These outcomes are explained by drawing on the classic concepts of business instrumental…
Redistribution Under the Right in Latin America: Electoral Competition and Organized Actors in Policymaking
Unexpected social policy expansion and progressive tax reforms initiated by right-wing governments in Latin America highlight the need for further theory development on the politics of redistribution. We focus on electoral competition for low-income voters in conjunction with the power of organized actors—both business and social movements. We argue that electoral competition motivates redistribution under left-wing and right-wing incumbents alik…
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications
In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked ser…
Explicit Bayesian Analysis for Process Tracing: Guidelines, Opportunities, and Caveats
Bayesian probability holds the potential to serve as an important bridge between qualitative and quantitative methodology. Yet whereas Bayesian statistical techniques have been successfully elaborated for quantitative research, applying Bayesian probability to qualitative research remains an open frontier. This paper advances the burgeoning literature on Bayesian process tracing by drawing on expositions of Bayesian “probability as extended logic…
Going Where the Money Is: Strategies for Taxing Economic Elites in Unequal Democracies
Business Power and Tax Reform: Taxing Income and Profits in Chile and Argentina
This article examines efforts to increase taxation of highly concentrated, undertapped income and profits in Latin America in the aftermath of structural adjustment. Argentina has advanced further than Chile in two policy areas: corporate taxation, which taps firm-level profits; and tax agency access to bank information, which helps reduce income tax evasion. These outcomes are explained by drawing on the classic concepts of business instrumental…
A Dialogue with the Data: The Bayesian Foundations of Iterative Research in Qualitative Social Science
We advance efforts to explicate and improve inference in qualitative research that iterates between theory development, data collection, and data analysis, rather than proceeding linearly from hypothesizing to testing. We draw on the school of Bayesian “probability as extended logic,” where probabilities represent rational degrees of belief in propositions given limited information, to provide a solid foundation for iterative research that has be…
Business Power and Protest: Argentina’s Agricultural Producers Protest in Comparative Context
Understanding Bayesianism: Fundamentals for Process Tracers
Bayesian analysis has emerged as a rapidly expanding frontier in qualitative methods. Recent work in this journal has voiced various doubts regarding how to implement Bayesian process tracing and the costs versus benefits of this approach. In this response, we articulate a very different understanding of the state of the method and a much more positive view of what Bayesian reasoning can do to strengthen qualitative social science. Drawing on for…
Does Patronage Still Drive Politics for the Rural Poor in the Developing World? A Comparative Perspective from the Livestock Sector
Is the analysis of patron-client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on 'social capital'? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populat…
Does Patronage Still Drive Politics for the Rural Poor in the Developing World? A Comparative Perspective from the Livestock Sector
Is the analysis of patron-client networks still important to the understanding of developing country politics or has it now been overtaken by a focus on 'social capital'? Drawing on seventeen country studies of the political environment for livestock policy in poor countries, this article concludes that although the nature of patronage has changed significantly, it remains highly relevant to the ways peasant interests are treated. Peasant populat…
Business Power and Tax Reform: Taxing Income and Profits in Chile and Argentina
This article examines efforts to increase taxation of highly concentrated, undertapped income and profits in Latin America in the aftermath of structural adjustment. Argentina has advanced further than Chile in two policy areas: corporate taxation, which taps firm-level profits; and tax agency access to bank information, which helps reduce income tax evasion. These outcomes are explained by drawing on the classic concepts of business instrumental…
Business Power and Protest: Argentina’s Agricultural Producers Protest in Comparative Context
Going Where the Money Is: Strategies for Taxing Economic Elites in Unequal Democracies
Private Wealth and Public Revenue in Latin America: Business Power and Tax Politics
Inequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic concepts of business's instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after economic liberalization. In Chile, business's multiple sources of…
Structural power in comparative political economy: Perspectives from policy formulation in Latin America
Structural power is a critical variable that merits more extensive and more explicit attention in Latin American political economy and in comparative politics more broadly. Assessing structural power in conjunction with its counterpart, instrumental power, can provide strong leverage for explaining variation in policy outcomes that affect business interests. However, structural power must be carefully defined and operationalized in order to captu…
Explicit Bayesian Analysis for Process Tracing: Guidelines, Opportunities, and Caveats
Bayesian probability holds the potential to serve as an important bridge between qualitative and quantitative methodology. Yet whereas Bayesian statistical techniques have been successfully elaborated for quantitative research, applying Bayesian probability to qualitative research remains an open frontier. This paper advances the burgeoning literature on Bayesian process tracing by drawing on expositions of Bayesian “probability as extended logic…
Redistribution Under the Right in Latin America: Electoral Competition and Organized Actors in Policymaking
Unexpected social policy expansion and progressive tax reforms initiated by right-wing governments in Latin America highlight the need for further theory development on the politics of redistribution. We focus on electoral competition for low-income voters in conjunction with the power of organized actors—both business and social movements. We argue that electoral competition motivates redistribution under left-wing and right-wing incumbents alik…
A Dialogue with the Data: The Bayesian Foundations of Iterative Research in Qualitative Social Science
We advance efforts to explicate and improve inference in qualitative research that iterates between theory development, data collection, and data analysis, rather than proceeding linearly from hypothesizing to testing. We draw on the school of Bayesian “probability as extended logic,” where probabilities represent rational degrees of belief in propositions given limited information, to provide a solid foundation for iterative research that has be…
The Qualitative Transparency Deliberations: Insights and Implications
In recent years, a variety of efforts have been made in political science to enable, encourage, or require scholars to be more open and explicit about the bases of their empirical claims and, in turn, make those claims more readily evaluable by others. While qualitative scholars have long taken an interest in making their research open, reflexive, and systematic, the recent push for overarching transparency norms and requirements has provoked ser…
Social Inquiry and Bayesian Inference: Rethinking Qualitative Research
Fairfield and Charman provide a modern, rigorous and intuitive methodology for case-study research to help social scientists and analysts make better inferences from qualitative evidence. The book develops concrete guidelines for conducting inference to best explanation given incomplete information; no previous exposure to Bayesian analysis or specialized mathematical skills are needed. Topics covered include constructing rival hypotheses that ar…
Social Inquiry and Bayesian Inference: Rethinking Qualitative Research
Understanding Bayesianism: Fundamentals for Process Tracers
Bayesian analysis has emerged as a rapidly expanding frontier in qualitative methods. Recent work in this journal has voiced various doubts regarding how to implement Bayesian process tracing and the costs versus benefits of this approach. In this response, we articulate a very different understanding of the state of the method and a much more positive view of what Bayesian reasoning can do to strengthen qualitative social science. Drawing on for…
Bayesian reasoning for qualitative replication analysis: Examples from climate politics
This paper demonstrates how Bayesian reasoning can be used for an analog of replication analysis with qualitative research that conducts inference to best explanation. We overview the basic mechanics of Bayesian reasoning with qualitative evidence and apply our approach to recent research on climate change politics, a matter of major importance that is beginning to attract greater interest in the discipline. Our re-analysis of illustrative eviden…
Political science (13 works) · Economics (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Qualitative Comparative Analysis Research (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works) · Bayesian probability (5 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law (5 works)