Applied Statistics for Political Scientists

Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford

Instructors: Sean Carey, Steve Fisher, Ken Macdonald, Lauren McLaren

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Readings and Assignments

There are two components to each week’s work. The statistical methods listed in the course outline represent the first (and most important) component. The second component is a set of readings on a current issue in political science and/or international relations. The readings usually deal with the same data as is used in that week’s class. More importantly, the readings highlight an important and (we hope) interesting question in political science, and point to ways in which quantitative methods have been used to investigate political phenomena.

All readings are required – we will discuss them at labs, and assume that participants have an understanding of the subject. In short, we are hoping to both teach statistics with STATA, and to have interesting discussions about the following issues. The main statistics text that we recommend is,

A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall)

however, the following may also be helpful since it provides examples in Stata.

Lawrence C. Hamilton. 2003. Statistics with Stata: Updated for Version 7. Australia ; Belmont, CA : Duxbury/Thomson Learning.

Most articles are available electronically, and links are provided below. Books marked with an asterisk will be placed in the Nuffield College Library’s first floor reading room.

Week 1 Methodology and Graphics in Political Science

· Gary King. 1991. “On Political Methodology,”' Political Analysis 2: 1-30 [READ PAGES 1-9], available on Gary King’s website (in pdf format).

· A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Chpt 1.

Skim one of the following:

· *Edward R. Tufte. 1983. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. (Chesire, CT: Graphics Press).

· William S. Cleveland. 1993. Visualizing Data. (Murray Hill, NJ: AT&T Bell Laboratories).

· William S. Cleveland. 1985. The Elements of Graphing Data. (Monterey, CA: Wadsworth Advanced Books and Software).

Week 2 Social Capital, Social Trust, and Political Trust

· *Hans-Dieter Klingemann. 1999. “Mapping Political Support in the 1990s: A Global Analysis,” Pp. 31-56 in Pippa Norris, ed., Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

· *Kenneth Newton. 1999. “Social and Political Trust in Established Democracies,” Pp. 169-187 in Norris, Critical Citizens.

· A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Chpt 3.

For background on “social capital”, see:

· Robert D. Putnam. 1995. “Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital.” Journal of Democracy 6(1): 65-78, available @ Project Muse (from University of Oxford).

· The World Bank’s website on social capital.

Week 3 Class Voting in Britain

· Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell, and John Curtice. 1985. How Britain Votes. (Oxford: Pergamon Press). Chapters 2 and 3.

· Ivor Crewe. 1986. “On the Death and Resurrection of Class Voting: Some Comments on How Britain Votes.” Political Studies 34: 620-638.

· A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Chpt 8.

Assignment: Class and Caste Voting in India

· Alistair McMillan. 2001 Scheduled Caste voting and the BJP. (Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco). pdf version

Week 4 Comparative Electoral and Party Systems

· *Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999).

· A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Chpt 9 & 12.

Week 5 Electoral & Party Systems

· Octavio Amorim Neto and Gary W. Cox. 1997. “Electoral Institutions, Cleavage Structures, and the Number of Parties.” American Journal of Political Science 41(1) 149-174, available from JSTOR.

· A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Chpts 11 & 14.

Assignment: Government Duration

· King, G., Alt, J.E., Burns, N.E. and Laver, M. 1990. “A Unified Model of Cabinet Dissolution in Parliamentary Democracies,” American Journal of Political Science, 34(3) 846-871, available from JSTOR.

· Strom, Kaare (1988) “Contending Models of Cabinet Stability”, American Political Science Review 82:923-30, available from JSTOR.

Week 6 British Voting Behaviour

· A. Agresti and B. Finlay. 1997. Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall), Chpt 15.

Assignment: International Conflict

· Bruce Russet. 1993. Grasping the Democratic Peace. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Week 7 Regression Interpretation, Presentation and Diagnostics

· G. King, M. Tomz and J. Wittenberg. 2000. “Making the Most of Statistical Analyses: Improving Interpretation and Presentation,” American Journal of Political Science. 44(2), 347-361, available from JSTOR.

· J. S. Long and J. Freese. 2001. Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables Using Stata. Stata Press, College Station, Texas.

Week 8 Accounting for Government Popularity

· Helmut Norpoth. 1987. “Guns and Butter and Economic Popularity in Britain.” American Political Science Review 81: 949-59. Available from JSTOR (from University of Oxford).

· David Sanders, David Marsh, and Hugh Ward. 1987. “Government Popularity and the Falklands War.” British Journal of Political Science 17: 281-313. Available from Cambridge Journals Online (from University of Oxford).