Quantifying Theory in Politics: Identification, Interpretation and the Role of Structural Methods

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of integrating rigorous theoretical structures into empirical political science research to improve identification, interpretation, and testing of models, enhancing the understanding of political mechanisms.

Contribution

It advocates for explicitly incorporating structural methods into empirical analysis, providing a comprehensive overview and practical guidance for their implementation in political science.

Findings

Structural methods enable quantification of mechanisms

They allow for policy effect extrapolation

They improve model testing and fit evaluation

Abstract

The best empirical research in political science clearly defines substantive parameters of interest, presents a set of assumptions that guarantee its identification, and uses an appropriate estimator. We argue for the importance of explicitly integrating rigorous theory into this process and focus on the advantages of doing so. By integrating theoretical structure into one's empirical strategy, researchers can quantify the effects of competing mechanisms, consider the ex-ante effects of new policies, extrapolate findings to new environments, estimate model-specific theoretical parameters, evaluate the fit of a theoretical model, and test competing models that aim to explain the same phenomena. As a guide to such a methodology, we provide an overview of structural estimation, including formal definitions, implementation suggestions, examples, and comparisons to other methods.