:Polisci Applied

Hello and thank you for visiting Polisci Applied. I’ll keep this inaugural entry brief, as I’ve already written most all the “meta” stuff about the site itself in the various subpages. So, I encourage checking them out: visit the About page to learn about the general purpose of this site, and the Guidelines page for, well, guidelines. Other pages include the Reading suggestions, which I will try and flesh out with a variety of things to read in the field of Political Science, and the Open discussion, which is the place to go if you just feel like chatting about something. Beyond that I encourage you to check out the author profiles (currently only me, but others will hopefully join in the near future) and other links on the sidebar.

As far as actual content goes, I intend to start with an examination of the traditional philosophies regarding the international system (e.g. realism/neorealism, neoliberalism/institutionalism, etc.), with the “applied” part being questions about their possible ramifications on the modern “war on terror.” And don’t worry if that sounds a bit heady, it’s actually remarkably straightforward so if you’re genuinely interested I’m sure you’ll catch on quick.

Anyway, thank you again for visiting, and please do come back soon. Actual content will arrive forthwith!

No Comments

I know what you’re probably thinking: what better way to start a faux academic website than with excessive “isms”? But before you make any judgments, it is important to at least begin to define these concepts that are to be discussed. The main issue to keep in mind is that these philosophies really do not correlate (at least strictly) to the partisan political spectrum (e.g. “conservative” and “liberal”), but are rather academic schools of thought regarding international relations theory.

Neorealism is, in a nutshell, a modern take on the classic realism of Thucydides (old dead Greek guy who wrote about the Peloponnesian war, arguing that city walls were in reality offensive as they upset the balance of power and such). It was first put forth by Kenneth Waltz (his works are listed on the reading suggestions page), and it is a systemic approach to international relations theory. The key assertions include the belief that the international system is inherently anarchic (that is, there is no true power above sovereign states, with groups like the UN being dismissed as ineffectual) and that states are concerned chiefly (and perhaps only) with their survival. The result is that the rational behavior of a state is dependent on where they sit in the international hierarchy, as the balance of power between them and other states dictates if they balance (side against other states) or bandwagon (join them). Generally seen as a “pessimistic” view, neorealists often dismiss theories that argue for the possibility of peace (such as, most notably, democratic peace theory), and conclude that the stablest state of affairs is when the international system is dominated by two foes who balance each other (e.g. the mutually assured destruction of the USA and the USSR during the Cold War).

Institutionalism, which is closely related to neoliberalism, is the belief that international institutions (social structures in general, so both explicit organizations and other established norms) are not impotent and do have the ability to change the behavior of states. While institutionalists generally agree with the premise of the neorealists that the international system is inherently anarchic, they believe that, in practice, this anarchic nature can be overcome. States need not be exclusively concerned with their survival and their status in the global hierarchy, but are capable of cooperation induced by common interests and principles that are facilitated via international institutions. Institutionalism is seen as a generally “optimistic” view, as it holds that genuine and stable global peace is someday possible.

Terrorism, well, you probably know what that is. That said, I still want to at least lay out how I think of it, as the way some people use the term makes it seem like the definition is “anything against our interests.” I consider terrorism to essentially be the class of warfare below guerilla war, where one side has such limited resources (in comparison to their opponent) that they embrace tactics of not just hit-and-run but attacking non-military targets, with the hope of inducing fear in the populace and causing their enemy to damage their own society.

All of these definitions are extremely general and likely flawed, so I encourage you to do your own background research as you see fit (and feel free to correct me too). Still, I’m hoping that they’re adequate to support some discussion about the issue of terrorism within the context of neorealism and institutionalism. That is, my intent is not to debate whether neorealism or institutionalism or some other view is the “right” one, but rather what ramifications these various philosophies have on the modern issue of terrorism. What tactics are appropriate to combat terrorism in a neorealist world versus an institutionalist one? How do the root causes of terrorism differ, and how might the solutions differ as well? In my opinion, any possible answers to these questions will not only have worth on their own but also provide means to empirically test the validity of neorealism versus institutionalism.

At this point I would obviously like to have contributions from other people. I intend to make a bit of a “series” out of this, so I will attempt to advance my own take on it in the near future. The purpose of this entry is just to lay down the foundation, and also to provide people out there with some food for thought. If you’re interested in writing about this, let me know and I can set you up with an account to write your own entries for this site. And of course, I am (as always) open to any suggestions and criticism you may have, so speak up.

Thanks for reading.

2 Comments

So I haven’t updated for awhile, and I apologize for that. I do intend to continue my series on neorealism, institutionalism, and terrorism, so please do continue to check back for that. However, for the time being I want to announce the launch of a new site: Political Science Wiki (I also added a link to it on the sidebar of this site). Currently the core structure is set up, and I encourage you to explore the site and contribute. Of course, as of yet it is missing any actual content, but the whole point of a Wiki is that it is built by a community. I certainly intend to write more for it, but I very much hope that there will be others out there who find the concept interesting and join in the effort.

Thank you for visiting, and expect more updates here soon.

No Comments

Note: this is a continuation from part 1, which basically just laid out the definitions of pertinent terms and concepts. As such, I’m not going to define them again, so go back if necessary…

In part 1 of this series I asked how terrorism might be seen in the context of neorealism versus institutionalism: now I will try to answer (part of) that question. Namely, if we hold that the general assumptions of neorealism are true, what does that mean regarding terrorism? How does it affect the possible causes of and solutions to terrorism, and how can it be used to make (hopefully testable) predictions about the nature of terrorism and related issues?

First off, if we take the key tenet of neorealism to be true, namely that the international system is inherently anarchic, then one definite effect is that terrorism can no longer be seen as a “counter the world status quo” type of action (because there is no overarching world organization that actually matters to rebel against). It would have to be seen as action intended against specific states, and further there must be at least some strategy to the targetting. For example, the recently foiled terrorist attack in Canada cannot be dismissed as generic anti-Westernism, but rather indicates that at least some terrorists see at least some utility in attacking Canada. One could certainly argue that this is due to Canada’s association with America, but there still has to be at least some specifically Canadian element of this relationship to justify the attack.

Another core belief of neorealism is that states act chiefly in self-preservation. Note that this can be interpreted a number of ways - the “offensive realism” of John Mearsheimer (see the reading page) asserts that the best way to be secure is to be a hegemon (basically, take over the world), and as such that is the ultimate goal of any state. In fact, I would argue that this view of realism lends itself quite well to the situation of terrorism, on both “sides” of the conflict. Ostensibly at least, everybody seems to simply be trying to preserve a “way of life” - to extremist Muslims that means getting rid of the Western influence in their homeland, and to Western society that means “defending the homeland” and of course getting plenty of oil (which is a bit inconveniently located, and hence a lot of the conflict). In either case, it seems that both “sides” have decided that the best strategy is aggression, and so “offensive realism” seems to be a fair explanation of that.

Now one of the largest difficulties of addressing terrorism in any way is the fact that terrorist organizations are “shadowy” - they’re most definitely not sovereign states, and as such applying any traditional theory (or tactics, when it comes to military engagements) is uncertain at best. Since neorealism essentially denies the significance of any non-state organizations in the international sphere, it is especially important to come up with some sort of explanation that addresses this issue. One argument might be that terrorist organizations are just pawns of actual states, allowing them to act with a greater impunity but still ultimately towards the interests of the state. Such an assertion is at least moderately testable - granted it would be ideal to have access to intelligence that is for the time being classified, but still it seems possible to go through and attempt to identify links (or the lack thereof) between terrorist organizations and actual states (I will reserve that for a later entry, however).

Obviously there’s much more that could be said, and I do intend to get to it (this is a series, after all). But in the interest of keeping these entries readable and down to a typical blog length, I’m going to stop here. I think I’ve generally addressed the main tenets of neorealism and how they might relate to terrorism, and I at least would conclude that some sort of realist view is at least plausible in the context of terrorism. It does a pretty good job of addressing possible motivations on both sides (self preservation), and the fact that targets must be states and not the world as a whole is reasonable as well. The main difficulty is in explaining why international politics now seems to be so influenced by these non-state organizations, and as I said above the best way to deal with this would be to link them to states (something that “hawks” like doing as it is, whether it’s true or not).

In the next part of this series I’ll try to do the same thing I did here but for institutionalism, and after that I’ll draw in more detail and maybe even come to some semblance of a conclusion. Thanks for reading, and please do check back for more in the near future.

1 Comment

Note: I intend to return to the series on neorealism/institutionalism/terrorism shortly. However, I found this particular issue interesting enough to warrant a brief digression.

In a move somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Strangelove, the United States is planning to build nuclear weapons for the first time in twenty years. This comes at a time where we are also trying to contain the growing nuclear powers of North Korea, Pakistan, and potentially Iran, and could obviously undermine such efforts. However, proponents argue that our current nuclear armaments are growing old and could potentially be unreliable in as little as 15 years. Further, they argue that building newer weapons (intended to have the same explosive power as the older weapons but a more modern and reliable design) could allow us to reduce the size of our inventory.

Among the many ironies at play here is the fact that two laboratories are actually competing for the project: the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico are both apparently working around the clock to come up with designs and proposals for the Nuclear Weapons Council. But regardless of which group of scientists implements the plan, it seems all but certain that it will go forward: it is part of a 2005 defense spending bill that had bipartisan support.

So, under the assumption that we are building new nuclear weapons and that things will generally go as planned (that is, we’ll succeed in making new, potent, and reliable weapons), I think it would be interesting to attempt to structure this situation in a game theoretic framework in order to predict the likelihood of this resulting in an arms race or some other less-than-desirable situation. Note that these games are modeled using the freely downloadable GamePlan software, and if you’re interested in the actual .gp file (to play with it yourself) then let me know (a comment would be appropriate).

This is my first time using this software, so please be patient. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be able to have variables as payoffs (that is, you need to specify a precise payoff, which is also expressed in scientific notation for some reason), so I did my best to choose payoffs from -3 to 3. My decisions are pretty arbitrary though, so I would be welcome to any suggestions people may have.

Here’s the game itself (click for fullsize):

There are three players: DNP (the dominant nuclear power, in this case America and to a degree her allies), RNP (rival nuclear powers, such as Russia and China), and ANP (aspiring nuclear powers, such as Iran and really most anybody else). As stated above, this game starts in the situation where the DNP has already undertaken a new nuclear program, purportedly for reasons of “reliability.” After this, both the RNP and the ANP players choose how they respond: note that the action taken by the RNP is publicly known (my reasoning being that if a major country with an established nuclear program is going to do something then they will either be unwilling or unable to hide it) while the actions of the ANP aren’t (since these are smaller countries without established programs they will have both the incentive and ability to mislead the rest of the world about their actions).

Despite this difference in knowledge, the choices of the RNP and ANP are pretty similar. Both can choose to either Escalate or to accept the Status Quo (SQ). The former of course basically means to pursue a nuclear program of their own, and the latter means not to. This is admittedly a simplistic view, but arguably that is an inherent part of any approach involving game theory. I would argue, at the risk of being punny, that the utility of the tool outweighs the possible costs.

Now, once the RNP and ANP have acted, the DNP gets to decide how they respond. There are four different possible states (nodes) that they get to act from: EE (both RNP and ANP escalated), ES (RNP escalated, ANP went with SQ), SE (RNP did SQ, ANP escalated), and SS (both did SQ). However, due to their limited knowledge they only know whether or not the RNP escalated or embraced the SQ. In either case, they get to choose between responding aggressively or passively (”strong” or “weak” strategy, denoted by S or W).

Why does the DNP have the option of being aggressive even in the SE/SS states (where the RNP embraced the SQ)? Simple: while the DNP has no real knowledge of the status of the ANP’s nuclear program, they can choose to use the doctrine of “preemption” and take aggressive action regardless. Note that if they do this from the SS state (where both RNP and ANP aren’t actually doing anything) the end result is a quagmire that actually hurts the DNP (sound familiar?).

In the end, there are 8 possible outcomes. If everyone escalates then it’s a “new arms race” - new both in the sense that it’s another one and in the sense that it is genuinely different from the old one as there are both large and small players. Meanwhile, if both RNP and ANP escalate and the DNP does not, the result is a new world order (e.g. one where the DNP is likely no longer dominant). If the DNP and RNP both escalate but the ANP doesn’t then the result is an old arms race (again because it is reminiscent of the arms race during the cold war). And if the RNP is the only one to escalate then the result is a gain in power for the RNP (not as much as a new world order, though).

The four remaining options are all cases where the RNP doesn’t escalate, and so the DNP is simply responding blindly as to whether or not they think the ANP is escalating or not. If both the DNP and ANP escalate then the result is a conflict with the ANP (likely not on the scale of world war, but still ugly enough to likely involve nuclear arms). If the ANP escalates and the DNP doesn’t, then the result is ANP gain (much like the above RNP gain). If the ANP doesn’t escalate and the DNP does, then the result is (as earlier described) a quagmire for the DNP. And if nobody escalates, the result is simply the status quo.

I’m not going to talk through the process of calculating the equilibrium at the moment: if you’re curious, check out the Wikipedia article linked to earlier and you should be able to figure it out yourself. I’ll just say that, with the payoffs I chose, the equilibrium (if both RNP and DNP hold a 50/50 belief regarding ANP’s actions) is W-ANP Gain (that is, RNP embraces SQ, ANP escalates, and DNP adopts a weak strategy). The payoffs in that case are (0,0,3), or no real gain or loss for the RNP/DNP but a significant gain for the ANP. I’d say this is a pretty plausible outcome, lending at least some credence to the model.

The reason I didn’t use a negative payoff for either the RNP or DNP was because I felt that, while a lot of rhetoric flies about regarding the “Axis of Evil” and such, the reality of nuclear weapons is that the principle reason countries pursue them is for respect. Pakistan got them, and suddenly we listen to them a lot more. Of course, there are still a lot of dictators and bad people out there who want weapons and that is by no means a good thing, but I believe that simply by getting nuclear weapons a country becomes somewhat more institutionalized and less likely to act unpredictably. And so the result of W-ANP Gain is really not that bad for the other players, as they aren’t personally threatened and actual conflict is unlikely.

Anyway, there’s plenty more I could say about this, and at some point I do want to return to it. However, this entry has already gotten ludicrously long so I need to cut it short. Let me know what you think, as this is my first real attempt to apply an actual academic method to a current issue. Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: This may or may not be related, but North Korea is possibly performing missile tests in the near future, over the objections of Japan, the US, and others. Also, I will almost definitely be going back and changing some of the payoffs of the game I constructed above. I like the general structure and logic of it, as well as my outcomes and explanations, but the numbers themselves need tweaking.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Looks like Iran is playing too.

No Comments

Mandatory link to previous part of the series, refer back as necessary for definitions/context.

Now it is time to ask, assuming that the general tenets of institutionalism are true, how would this affect the issue of terrorism? Specifically, how would it shape our understanding of the causes of terrorism, and how would these problems best be solved? When examining terrorism through a neorealist lens, I generally argued that it should be seen as a strategic and purposeful (e.g. targetted) action, with self-preservation as a motivation (and Mearsheimer’s “offensive realism” showing why that can still mean offensive action) and terrorist organizations essentially being pawns of actual states, allowing them to act with greater impunity. Neoliberalism and institutionalism share a number of the core concepts of neorealism, but draw significantly different conclusions from them.

The most important difference between institutionalism and neorealism is the belief that international institutions are not impotent. This has the potential to greatly change the issue of terrorism, as it opens the door to a real global solution. Just because it is theoretically possible, though, doesn’t mean it is feasible. Influencing states is one matter, but influencing non-state organizations is quite another.

One of the assertions I made when discussing neorealism was that, since in the neorealist view there are only states and no real overarching international system, terrorism cannot be seen as some sort of generic anti-status quo action but rather must be targetted against specific states. In institutionalism, however, this is not necessarily the case: given that it is possible for international institutions to foster genuine global cooperation, it is also possible that the chief objective of terrorism is to target efforts to that effect.

Given that institutionalism changes how we understand the goal of terrorism, let us now determine how it changes the possible solutions. One aspect is that, by recognizing the legitimacy of non-state institutions in the international arena, terrorist organizations are no longer so “shadowy” and can possibly be confronted, even through diplomatic means. While this may sound unorthodox (and certainly contrary to the common rhetoric of western leadership), it is still at the very least theoretically possible, and I believe even feasible.

Both the western world and the terrorist organizations wish to preserve a way of life (this is true both from an institutionalist and a neorealist point of view) - the west wants to have cheap oil, as well as the many things such an energy source permits. Many Muslims, however, want to keep western influences out of their homeland, and preserve their culture (as well as pursue their conflict with Israel unfettered). Superficially, these two goals contradict each other, and when you add in the religious and historical overtones you get the conflict we have today. However, I believe that it is possible to overcome all of this, if both sides seek appropriate reforms and advances.

The west needs to do two things - first, it needs to develop an alternative energy source (and preferably find ways to moderate energy demands as well). Whatever this source is, it needs to be reasonably clean and plentiful - human ingenuity will be needed, but I am no engineer so I can’t say much more than that. In any case, this will give us much needed leverage in the conflict, allowing us both to wean ourselves of oil and to act with a greater impartiality in the rest of the world.

The second thing we need to do is, well, act with a greater impartiality in the rest of the world. This is not to say we should unilaterally withdraw from the Middle East or anywhere else - however, it would be ideal for us to not use our influence exclusively in our own interest but rather in the interest of the common good. Such selfless actions are possible in an institutionalist world, and I believe they are necessary to solve the problem of terrorism. Rather than drop bombs and invade countries (actions which likely create as many terrorists as they kill), we need to support proponents of reform in Islamic countries while still respecting their history and culture.

And that brings me to what the Islamic side needs to do to help fix these issues - put simply, they need to reform. While this may sound incompatible with their goal of preserving their way of life, that is not necessarily the case. History and culture are important, but so is progress and change, and it is not only possible but quite preferable to mix the two. The biggest problem with the Islamic world is that it is largely controlled by its most radical elements (not too terribly unlike the Western world at the moment) - however, there most definitely are moderate Muslims who wish to pursue meaningful reforms of their laws and traditions.

I would say the most important issue is the treatment of women, and second is the general treatment and views of any religions other than Islam. Other problems include the sectarian violence and strife within the Islamic world, the stature and power of the Saudi royal family and other wealthy oil-controllers (a problem which would be greatly mediated by the west pursuing alternative energy), and the general lack of free press, free speech, and other important elements of democracy. Obviously this is quite a laundry list, and it’s important to keep in mind that this will not be accomplished overnight (and further that force, or at least external force, is not going to help the situation). However, I believe it is quite possible, and that it would be facilitated by the west doing its part and showing some real world leadership for once (e.g. pursuing alternative energy and acting with greater impartiality, as above).

And I believe that if both sides pursue these reforms, terrorists will become a dying breed, no longer able to recruit to their cause. It is difficult for states to directly affect non-state organizations, but it is quite possible for them to shape the world in a way that is either more or less conducive to their success, and that is what I am proposing here.

Ultimately, it’s clear that institutionalism paints a relatively rosier picture of the world, or at least the positive possibilities within it. However, this is not to say that institutionalism is the correct view - in fact, this optimism could be precisely what disproves it. And that is what awaits us in part 4, where I will attempt to find actual evidence to support or refute either the neorealist or institutionalist views. Thank you for reading.

No Comments

Okay, not really memoirs per se. Still, my writing something here is long overdue, so here goes:

I just completed my first quarter of study at Stanford, acquiring some small portion of the knowledge that will one day hopefully get me a job somewhere, or something. The most notable thing about grad school is the ridiculous reading load - multiple courses assigning multiple (complete or almost complete) books (plus academic articles, etc.) per week. Between the hundreds of pages of reading, plus the fact that I am getting acclimated to a new area of the country, updating this site fell to the wayside.

And now, to be honest, I don’t have anything terribly prodigious to say. Mostly I wanted to verify that I do still intend to do things with this site, in case anybody out there is reading (unlikely I know). Further, as time passes (e.g. once I get through my core courses) I hope to recruit a few other folks to write here as well, in order to provide a variety of perspectives (as well as semi-regular updates).

What have I learned in my studies thus far? Well, I’ve read a lot, as I said, and while I cannot claim to remember all (or even much) of it, I do have a better feel of political science literature now. I have a decent chance of at least recognizing the name of important authors in international relations and comparative politics, and maybe even placing them in whatever general philosophical category they belong in.

Mostly, as with all education, I acquired tools and experience. The professors have all pushed a very methodical way of viewing problems in polisci - figure out your puzzle in terms of the dependent variable (DV, what you want to explain) and the independent variable(s) (IV, what you think explains it). Whether or not you apply actual stats or formal modeling, this conceptualization is necessary if you want to have a valid argument in the social sciences.

And with that, I want to pass along two interesting writings, one by my professor for international relations this past quarter and one by my professor for comparative politics. The former, Jim Fearon (considered an expert in civil war and formal modeling), appeared before a congressional committee earlier this year and gave testimony regarding the state of affairs in Iraq (warning: PDF). The latter, David Laitin (also a civil war guy, he and Jim and cowritten papers on the topic) recently wrote an op-ed about the Iraq Study Group report.

As far as writing some original stuff for this site, I do intend to do that in the near future (it is my break for a few weeks, after all). I may adapt and post some bits from papers I’ve written this quarter, as a few were on topics pertinent to the real world and not just academia. In any case, thank you for reading, and stay tuned for more political science themed ranting and raving.

3 Comments

A trend in almost all online discussion of statistical study is to point out the so-called “correlation-causation fallacy” - that is, “correlation does not equal causation.”

This is of course true, and is well worth pointing out in some situations. I would estimate that the correlation-causation fallacy is likely second only to ad hominem in terms of fallacies commonly found in public dialogue. Closely related is the concern for which direction the causation may work, but I will save that issue for another time.

For those who are unaware, the correlation-causation fallacy in a nutshell is any sort of argument that goes along the lines of “I observe A happening at the same time as B, therefore A causes B.” Stated in plain logical terms it is clear why it is fallacious, but when dressed up in suitable rhetoric - “Those kids are always playing violent videogames and listening to bad music and etc… and they’re also doing bad in school, so videogames and bad music and etc. must make you bad at school” - it becomes a very tempting (though still quite wrong) argument indeed. The main danger is that both A and B can be explained by some external factor C, say in the case of the previous example, inattentive parents.

However, this criticism is often leveled against statistical studies. Again, this is not entirely without merit, especially if one is critiquing the specific headline or way a study was framed by the media (which is often inaccurate and overly generalized). However, to use the “correlation-causation fallacy” as a rhetorical cudgel with which to dismiss any and all statistical findings (or at least those you don’t like) is a fallacy in and of itself, hence this writeup.

Those who overuse the “correlation is not causation” line often have little understanding for how a proper statistical study is actually conducted. For an example, see this discussion on Slashdot. It’s about a recently published study which generally concludes that a few drinks a day is healthy, or at least not too unhealthy. Here’s one comment that was highly moderated (e.g. approved generally by the community, which in the case of Slashdot consists of a reasonably intelligent mix of mostly male geeks):

The Old Correlation-Causation Confusion

Well, that would be *excellent*, I love a glass of wine or three a day. A beer or two on a hot day is just heavenly. But unfortunately the correlation may not imply causation. i.e. people who live longer drink more, but not vice-versa.

• Maybe really sick people don’t drink as much.
• Maybe the people that have four drinks a day have to be quite healthy to keep that up day after day after day.
• Maybe drinking keeps them off the streets, or out of other dangerous places.
• Maybe all the 4-drink-a-day people have died already and were not around for a survey.

Lotsa possible ways to spoil things.

Another highly moderated comment:

Stats 101…

Correlation does not imply causation. All we can say is that “people who drink a bit of alcohol tend to live longer,” not that alcohol prolongs their lives. It could be that these individuals take the time to socialize and de-stress, which causes them to live longer. Or perhaps there are financial factors at play: someone who can afford to drink three or four bottles of wine a week is not likely to be living in abject poverty. Of course, it could also be that anti-oxidant properties of the beverages have a positive effect as well.

It is worth noting that there was actually a reasonably insightful reply to the above comment, and I will essentially expand upon what it said here. Both of the above comments, despite their erudition in using the scholarly-sounding terms “correlation” and “causation”, are actually a display of general statistical ignorance. Upon examining the news report about the study, it becomes clear that this is not the sort of result that can be so casually dismissed. A key excerpt:

Their conclusion is based on pooled data from 34 large studies involving more than 1 million people and 94,000 deaths.

This was a very large study, and the scope of it suggests to me that those who conducted it are likely well aware of the issues of correlation and causation and that the former does not necessarily imply the latter. In fact, typical statistical methods (including the ones likely used in this study) are built explicitly to help control for these issues. Newsmen and pundits may make the correlation-causation fallacy, but someone who has spent years studying regression analysis is unlikely to. This is not to say that all academic statistical work is flawless - in fact, the more of it I see, the more flaws I see. However, the mistakes are often much like the work itself - very complex. One generally cannot dismiss an academic study with one sentence and a few logical fallacy terms (there are some situations where you can, but I don’t think this particular study is one of them).

Don’t worry though, I’m not going to just wave my hands here and expect you to believe me. Here is roughly how statistical studies control for the issue of correlation versus causation, among other things: first, it all comes down to your data, and your data depends on your sampling technique. Here they used a pooled sample, combining the results from 34 previous studies into a quite tremendous one million person sample. While we do not know how the individual studies were conducted, it is safe to say that with such a large total sample it should be possible for competent researchers to build a sample generally representative of the total population. That is, given that the world demographics are known (roughly 50/50 gender split, a generally bell-shaped distribution for age as there are few babies and few really old and mostly in the middle, etc.), the researchers can pick and choose data based on these characteristics to have results which can better model back on to reality.

Of course, the researchers should randomly pick and choose based on these factors, and not based on other ones (for a health related study, it would bias your results a great deal to choose a sample based on preexisting health conditions, e.g. study exclusively healthy or exclusively sick people). And this brings me to another technique of sampling - random sampling. If you cannot collect such a large sample as to allow you to construct a balanced sample, then you can simply choose people at random, thus normalizing all other factors. If done properly, such a study can have pretty good statistical power with a sample as small as a thousand people. True random sampling is increasingly difficult in the modern day, though - the sorts of people who will respond to surveys and studies are different than those who won’t, and that alone will bias your sample.

Now, why does having a balanced sample (constructed or random) help with the correlation-causation fallacy? In the words of Sherlock Holmes, “when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” That is to say, if your study is adequately controlled for possible external “C” factors (as discussed earlier), then it is reasonable to conclude that the relationship between A and B is causal (though as said earlier, the direction of the cause is another issue).

In the case of a medical study, that means controlling for characteristics that would be pertinent in terms of health. If you’re studying the effects of alcohol, you don’t want to survey just healthy people or just sick people, but rather a suitable mix of both. In the field of political science, controls have more to do with, well, political, social, and economic issues. If you want to argue, in international relations, that democracies do not go to war with each other (the “democratic peace”, common in both academic papers and presidential speeches), then you would do well to control for GDP (to defend against the argument that democracies simply happen to be wealthy and it is wealthy countries that avoid mutual war, on account of the prohibitive cost of suspending trade and disrupting industry) Of course the argument gets more complex if somebody asserts that democracy causes wealth and then wealth causes peace - while this may somewhat save the “democratic peace”, the causal chain must be defended from possible alternative explanations at each link.

Some issues are so slippery, with so many possible causes, that it is very difficult to get statistical traction on them. There are sophisticated methods to help with this, most of which I only have a vague understanding of at the moment (check back in a few years). But yes, some assertions are beyond reasonable testing, particularly when you cannot control the behavior of your objects of study (that is, you are not in an experimental setting such as a laboratory but are rather trying to observe real-world issues such as war). A currently hot field in political science is to try to use a more experimental approach, and this is somewhat possible in domestic politics or public opinion issues where you can take steps to affect your object of study. In the case of international relations, though, it is unlikely that academics will ever be able to tell countries to go to war or not simply in the name of science.

And so, the bottom line is that it is still quite reasonable to be suspicious of statistics, especially when they are being cited by the media and/or politicians. Even when a study is valid, the results are often twisted by an intern who just read the abstract and decided it would make good political fodder in a campaign ad. But just as correlation does not imply causation, suspicion should not entail dismissal - be cautious, but still give studies a decent thinking-through at the least before concluding they are either right or wrong. Ask yourself these questions:

• Did they build their sample in a reasonably unbiased way?
• Is there a clear mechanism to explain why their independent variable(s) leads to their dependent variable?
• Have they accounted for any superior alternative explanations that I can come up with?

If the answer to all three of these is “yes”, then it is reasonable to say that the study is accurate. If the answers are more mixed, well, then deal with them as the situation justifies.

Thank you for reading.

5 Comments

Having recently addressed the issue of causation in general, I would like to now talk a bit about the problem of causal direction. As I alluded to earlier, even when one is able to use properly controlled statistics to establish a clear causal relationship between two variables, it is still another matter to determine which one is causing the other. Ideally, a researcher wants whatever their proposed independent variable (IV) is to cause their proposed dependent variable (DV) - that is, if they are trying to argue that cigarette smoking causes cancer, then cigarette smoking is the IV and cancer is the DV.

And now you are thinking “Of course cigarette smoking causes cancer!”. It is pretty absurd to imagine a world where cancer induces the habit of smoking cigarettes and not the other way around. But the simplicity of this particular example, while useful for illustration, belies the complexity of the problem. The question to ask is *why* do we know that it is cigarette smoking that causes cancer, and not cancer that causes cigarette smoking? Can we determine this by simply considering smokers versus non-smokers and cancer sufferers versus non-cancer sufferers in a statistical sense, or are we forced to rely on other arguments if we wish to take a definitive stance?

As far as I know (though please correct me if I’m wrong), there is no established academic response to this line of questioning. Different scholars take different approaches in different situations. In our smoking example, one likely would cite non-statistical material as indicative of the harmful effects of smoking (case studies, clinical trials, etc.), and then use it in conjunction with statistical research to show the full scope of the issue. While such arguments are neither parsimonious nor elegant, they are very typical and generally compelling (assuming that the various parts are all valid themselves).

Unfortunately, some fields do not have the luxury of employing controlled studies or trials, and in these cases the answer to causal direction is far less clear. When one simply has to “make do” with the data they have, determining causal direction becomes a great deal more tricky. Consider this example:

You have a theory that war is partially caused by the level of nationalism and nationalistic rhetoric present in the initiating country. The story for such a theory is relatively plausible - nationalism brings about a feeling of elitism and superiority, which is conducive to domestic approval for aggressive military action. You decide to operationalize nationalism based on the use of nationalistic rhetoric in mainstream media. And so you collect your data, with a DV of initiating war and an IV of nationalism, plus some controls (major power status, GDP, etc.).

You run your regression, and huzzah! There is a clear and statistically significant correlation between nationalism and war. But wait: you potentially have what is known as “simultaneity bias”, because your regressors may be endogenous rather than exogenous. In other words, you are running the equation in terms of y=x, when in reality the value of x itself may be dependent on y. The two sides of the equation simultaneously cause one another, which means once the math is done your estimates are going to be inaccurate (obviously a bad thing if you’re trying to derive policy implications or advice from this).

What’s the remedy? In a sense, the remedy is to get better data. Specifically though, you want to get what is called an instrumental variable (also known as a “proxy”). This is a variable that you want to be good at predicting your x variable (the independent variable or regressor) but one that is independent of your y variable (e.g. it is not caused by it). It’s okay if this seems confusing because it is, so here’s an example:

Let’s go back to our attempt to predict war as a function of nationalism. We can’t just measure nationalism concurrently with war, as it is reasonable to suspect that it is influenced by it and thus unsuitable as a regressor. And so, we want to determine an instrumental variable that is good at predicting nationalism but not dependent on the occurrence of war. One possibility would be to isolate events known to encourage nationalism (independence day, Olympics/international sports competitions, maybe elections) and use them as indicators for how nationalistic the country is. Holidays and sports events are generally stable and thus shouldn’t be influenced by the possibility of war (I realize events may be cancelled by the indicator is still sound), and thus are possibly suitable proxies for nationalism. Thus if one can identify a statistically significant relationship between pro-nationalism events and war, then the nationalism-causes-war argument is at least somewhat validated.

Of course, not everybody is running regressions and dealing with simultaneity and endogeneity in the mathematical sense. Yet non-statistical arguments can also fall prey to the issue of causal direction, as is clearly explained by A Rulebook for Arguments (pg. 38, linked to in the reading suggestions page). After considering the problem of whether television causes a decline in morals or vice-versa, the book offers the brief but potent bit of insight that one must simply evaluate which direction has a more plausible causal story. And most notably, if both are plausible, then perhaps the causal direction simply runs in both directions - after all, reality is complicated.

In the social sciences we are, as usual, left with more puzzles than answers. It is precisely these nuances that require us to be very careful in our theorizing - academically, political science is very young (50 or 60 years old, compared to thousands for mathematics and other disciplines), and we are still making only “baby steps” in our explanations for society. Overall, the best way to deal with causal direction is to be very conservative and precise in ones assertions - don’t expect to provide a grand unified theory of society, but instead pick a specific puzzle, generate a plausible argument, and test it rigorously. Whether your initial assertions prove to be correct or incorrect, you will have made a contribution to the body of knowledge that is social science. Eventually, we may be ready to say bigger things, but for now the small puzzles are all we can handle.

1 Comment

The long stagnant Political Science Wiki is redone, with a new host and setup and (hopefully) more attentive editors and content. For now it’s still just me, and over the next few days I intend to run through and create a number of very simple definitional entries (e.g. just a sentence or two on a concept) to start filling out the site a bit. Since it’s a Wiki, it’s up to the community as a whole to pitch in and add quality content. So, if you’re interested in political science and want to contribute, please join in!

No Comments