Intellectuals and Democratization, 1905–1912 and 1989–1996

Kurzman, Charles; Leahey, Erin

doi:10.1086/378929

Cited by 29 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…It stands to reason that some of these factors will prove more empirically robust than others. Let us imagine that an analysis reveals the number of highly educated intellectuals to be the strongest predictor of regime type in a panel of countries (following Kurzman & Leahey, 2004). Now, in all likelihood, the author of such a study will not publish this finding as a test of causal mechanisms.…”

Section: Testing Causal Mechanisms: What Is Distinctive?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Mechanisms: Yes, But…

Gerring

2010

Comparative Political Studies

182

106

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In recent years, the importance of mechanism-centered explanation has become an article of faith within the social sciences, uniting researchers from a wide variety of methodological traditions—quantitative and qualitative, experimental and nonexperimental, nomothetic and idiographic, formal models and narrative prose. Despite its many virtues, there are reasons to be skeptical of social science’s newfound infatuation with causal mechanisms. First, the concept of a mechanism-centered (“mechanismic”) explanation is fundamentally ambiguous, meaning different things to different people. Second, the minimal objectives associated with the turn to mechanisms—to specify causal mechanisms and engage in detailed causal reasoning—are not at variance with traditional practices in the social sciences and thus hardly qualify as a distinct approach to causal assessment. Finally, the more demanding goal of rigorously testing causal mechanisms in causal arguments is admirable but often unrealistic. To clarify, this is not a polemic against mechanisms. It is a polemic against a dogmatic interpretation of the mechanismic mission. Causal mechanisms are rightly regarded as an important, but secondary, element of causal assessment—by no means a necessary condition.

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Section: Testing Causal Mechanisms: What Is Distinctive?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Causal Mechanisms: Yes, But…

Gerring

2010

Comparative Political Studies

182

106

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“…More serious differences can occur due to the model Bollen (1983) + Kenneth Bollen and Robert Jackman (1985) + Lev Gonick and Robert Rosh (1988) + Ross E. Burkhart and Michael Lewis-Beck (1994) + Kenneth Bollen and Robert Jackman (1995) + 10th GDP lag Edward Crenshaw (1995) + 15th lag for GDP Edward Muller (1995a) + 10th GDP lag and democracy change Edward Muller (1995b) +, −, ns 10th GDP lag John Londregan and Keith Poole (1996) + Robert Barro (1999) + Yi Feng and Paul Zak (1999) +, ns 3rd GDP lag Mansoor Dailami (2000) + Przeworski et al (2000) ns 1st lag and lagged moving average Pamela Paxton (2002) ns Quan Li and Rafael Reuveny (2003) +, −, ns Charles Kurzman and Erin Leahey (2004) ns Nita Rudra (2005) +, −, ns Carol Atkinson (2006) +, ns ns effect of GDP in authoritarian and positive effect in transitional states David Epstein et al (2006) + Kristian Gleditsch and Michael Ward (2006) ns Unspecified lag Christian Welzel and Ronald Inglehart (2006) +, −, ns 7th, 8th, or 9th lag Jordan Gans-Morse and Simeon Nichter (2008) +, ns 1st lag Frank Schimmelfennig and Hanno Scholtz (2008) +, ns 4th lag Mikhail Balaev (2009) ns, marg.+ 1st lag Christian Houle (2009) ns, marg.+ Unspecified lag Magnus Thor Torfason and Paul Ingram (2010) ns Lingling Qi and Doh Chull Shin (2011) +, −, ns Note. More serious differences can occur due to the model Bollen (1983) + Kenneth Bollen and Robert Jackman (1985) + Lev Gonick and Robert Rosh (1988) + Ross E. Burkhart and Michael Lewis-Beck (1994) + Kenneth Bollen and Robert Jackman (1995) + 10th GDP lag Edward Crenshaw (1995) + 15th lag for GDP Edward Muller (1995a) + 10th GDP lag and democracy change Edward …”

Section: Theoretical-empirical Mismatchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking Time Seriously

Balaev

2014

Sociological Perspectives

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The author analyzes the time component in the relationship between economic development and democracy. The review of the relevant literature shows that no systematic analysis of lags has been performed. Furthermore, the mainstream analysis shows a disconnect between the theory and empirical studies concerning the economy-democracy relationship. Four questions are formulated regarding the timing of the effects of economic development on political democracy. A series of models are estimated and several distributions of the lagged effects are constructed and analyzed. The author finds that not only do lagged effects have a better theoretical fit, but they also produce larger coefficients as compared with the instantaneous effects. In addition, measuring economic performance in moving averages as opposed to the conventional singleyear measurement produces empirically superior models that have fewer nonsignificant results. The author calls for further systematic analyses of the lagged effects of economic development and suggests a theoretical reconceptualization of the economy-democracy relationship.Most scholars in contemporary sociological and political research would agree that economic development has some influence on a country's political development. Most researchers would also argue that the effect of the economy on the level of political democratization is most likely positive. However, there is no consensus as to the extent of this effect. Moreover, quantitative research has consistently produced conflicted evidence of the effect of economic development on democracy, ranging from negative effects, to nonsignificant effects, to positive effects. This article aims at moving the debate further by refining the theoretical relationship between the economy and democracy through a systematic analysis of the time-delayed effects of economic development on democracy. In addition to exploring lags, I investigate moving averages (MAs) as an alternative to yearly observations for the measurement of economic development. This article shows that both lags and MAs can offer a better theoretical fit, produce greater effects on democracy, and have a higher theoretical validity. By combining time-delayed effects and Sociological Perspectives 58 (2) MAs, researchers can produce improved model specifications that are more closely related to the underlying theory of the relationship between the economy and democracy. As a result, we can have a better understanding of the conceptual relationship between the economy and democracy.I first review prior research and relevant theories, then I present the data and analysis, which is followed by a discussion and a conclusion. The goal of this article is to conduct a detailed empirical exploration of distributed lagged effects and describe the observed waves of the timedelayed effects of economy on democracy. The observed waves suggest a potential for further theoretical development in the analysis of the relationship between the economy and democracy. The main contribution of this artic...

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“…Our final independent variable, democracy, is taken from a collection of measures developed by the Polity IV Project (2009), which has been prominently used by other sociologists (e.g., Kurzman and Leahey 2004). Specifically, we used the "POLITY2" measure of political regime that ranges from −10 to +10, created by subtracting an 11-point (0 through 10) autocracy scale from an 11-point democracy scale.…”

Section: Description Of the Independent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%