Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis
The Case of the Origins of Proportional Representation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3347572 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marcus Kreuzer (0000-0002-9978-1171, Villanova University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 369-392 |
| Publication date | 2010-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Science Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0003055410000122 |
| OpenAlex | W3121838464 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 63 |
| References cited | 101 |
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
Argument (complex analysis · Economics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Representation (politics · Robustness (evolution · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Philosophy · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies · Social Policy and Reform Studies
Historical Institutionalism in Political Science
Multilevel Democracy
Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice
Colonialism, Landlords, and Public Goods Provision in India
A Research Agenda in Elections and Voting Behavior in a Global and Changing World
Rethinking the Methodological Foundation of Historical Political Science
When Is Old Too Old? The Problem of Leaning on Outdated Historical Work and a Simple Distinction between Two Kinds of Evidence to Address This
Explaining the multiparty systems of Western Europe prior to the adoption of proportional representation
Taking history seriously in comparative research
Social policy development and global financial crisis in the open economies of Botswana and Mauritius
The Political Economy of Household Debt & The Keynesian Policy Paradigm
Agricultural Interests and the Origins of Capitalism
Between X and Y
The Egyptian Revolution and the Politics of Histories
Feet of Clay? How to Review Political Science Papers that Make Use of the Work of Historians
Rokkan Rules? Communist Elites and the Choice of Electoral Systems in the Yugoslav Republics, 1989–1990
Reform and Reaction
The Case for Selecting Cases That Are Deviant or Extreme on the Independent Variable
A developmental approach to historical causal inference
The Existential Threat
The Parliamentary Origins of Party Strength in Western Europe before the Second World War
Getting the Context Right in Quantitative Historical Analysis
Reading History Forward
Second order electoral rules and national party systems
Pragmatism and Methodology
A New Case for the Study of Individual Events in Political Science
The Adoption of Proportional Representation
Multiparty America
Disproportional Threat
An intra-party account of electoral system choice
Methodologies of Informed Intuition
The Structure of Description
Sweden’s Peculiar Adoption of Proportional Representation
When Multi-Method Research Subverts Methodological Pluralism—or, Why We Still Need Single-Method Research
Transparency for Text-Based Sources
Measures of vote-seat disproportionality for incomplete data
Challenging the wisdom on preferential proportional representation
When dominant parties adopt proportional representation
The choice of electoral systems in new democracies
Explaining Historical Employer Coordination
Revolution, Elite Fear, and Electoral Institutions
Parties, Legislators, and the Origins of Proportional Representation
Democracy and Retribution
How Erroneous Beliefs Trigger Authoritarian Collapse
Methodological Rorschach Tests
The Capital Mistake
Qualitative Methods
Réformes électorales et changements institutionnels dans un contexte de démocratisation. Le choix du scrutin uninominal sous la Troisième République en France
The Problem of History
Reading History Forward
Democracy by Mistake
The strategic determinants of legislative malapportionment in new democracies
The problem of the missing dead
Electoral Markets, Party Strategies, and Proportional Representation
Coevolution of Capitalism and Political Representation
Gender and the Influence of Proportional Representation
Mixing Methods
Socialist Threat? Radical Party Entry, Electoral Alliances, and the Introduction of Proportional Representation
An ecological inference approach to the origins of proportional representation
Electoral Reform Under Limited Party Competition
The Ulysses Principle
Causality and History
Partisanship, Cross-Party Coalitions, and Social Policymaking in Brazil
Electoral Behavior
Labor relations in the Netherlands
From Words to Numbers
Industrial constructions
Democracy or anarchy?
Constructing social research
Essays in positive economics
The Canadian House of Commons
The Historic Turn in the Human Sciences
International Historical Statistics Europe 1750–1988
Capitalists against Markets
Unexpected Outcomes
The Economic Effects of Constitutions
State Formation, Nation-Building, and Mass Politics in Europe
Globalization and History
Forging Democracy
The International Almanac of Electoral History
The logic of comparative social Inquiry
Small States in World Markets
Rethinking Social Inquiry
Democratisation and Changing Methods of Electoral Corruption in France from 1815 to 1914
The Formation of Labour Movements 1870-1914
Staat und Arbeitsbeziehungen
Social Protection and the Formation of Skills
Fighting Poverty in the US and Europe
Practicing Democracy
Varieties of Capitalism
Europäische Bauernparteien im 20. Jahrhundert
Industrial Relations and European State Traditions
French peasant Fascism
State, Economy and Society in Western Europe, 1815–1975
Elections in Western Europe since 1815
Switzerland
How Institutions Evolve
And the Origins of Preferential Electoral Systems in Australia
Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Politics
The Politics of Oligarchy
Politische Agrarbewegungen in kapitalistischen Industriegesellschaften
Comparative Politics
The Transition from Capitalism to Socialism
Institutions and Innovation. Voters, Parties, and Interest Groups in the Consolidation of Democracy
Histoire de la législation électorale en Belgique
Small States in World Markets
Strikes are more common in countries with majoritarian electoral systems
Constructing social research
The Siamese Twins
The Industrial Development and Commercial Policies of the Three Scandinavian Countries
Parliamentarization and the Question of German Exceptionalism
A Failed Institutional Transplant
Regional Modes of Production and Patterns of State Formation in Western Europe
Radicalism or Reformism
The Competitive Road to Proportional Representation
Political Parties and the Study of Political Development
Institutions, Partisanship, and Inequality in the Long Run
It's Parties that Choose Electoral Systems (Or, Duverger's Laws Upside Down)
Complex Causal Relations and Case Study Methods
Is Causal-Process Observation an Oxymoron
The Qualitative Foundations of Political Science Methodology
Do Parties Benefit from Electoral Manipulation? Electoral Laws and Heresthetics in Poland, 1989-93
How electoral systems matter for democratization
Effective” Number of Parties
Context and Causal Mechanisms in Political Analysis
Majoritarian Electoral Systems and Consumer Power
To Adopt or Not to Adopt Proportional Representation
Trade and the variety of democratic institutions
The World Economy
Can Social Theory Escape from History? Views of History in Social Science
From Words to Numbers
The best of both worlds? The Danish electoral system 1915-20 in a comparative perspective
Strategic fools
The Peasantry, Rural Change and Conservative Agrarianism
Changes in the Structure and Role of Farming in the Economy of a West Norwegian Island
Industrial Constructions
Electoral Institutions and the Politics of Coalitions
The New French Electoral Law and the Elections of 1928
History, Historiography, and Political Science
Setting the Rules of the Game
The Political Origins of Coordinated Capitalism
Electoral Reform in France and the Elections of 1919
Shaping Democratic Practice and the Causes of Electoral Fraud
Economic Interests and the Origins of Electoral Systems
Bridging the Quantitative-Qualitative Divide in Political Science
Die Wirtschaftsverbande in der Demokratie. Vom Wachstum der Wirtschaftsorganisationen im Schweizerischen Staat
Swedish Parliamentary Elections, 1919
Proportional Representation in Sweden
The Electoral System of Finland
| Unique citing works | 63 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,94 |
| Citation span | 2010 - 2025 (16) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 63 |