The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Political Science

Harold Kincaid is Professor in the School of Economics at the University of Cape Town. His research concerns issues in the philosophy of science and philosophy of social and behavioral science as well as experimental work in economics on, among other things, risk and time attitudes, trust and addiction. He is the author or editor of 13 books starting with The Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences: Analyzing Controversies in Social Research (1996) and many journal articles and book chapters. Recent or forthcoming work includes the Elgar Companion to Philosophy of Economics with Don Ross (2021) and articles or book chapters on objectivity in the social sciences, improving causal inference in economics, the role of mechanisms in the social sciences, agent-based models, classifying mental disorders, the risk-trust confound, and prospect theory. He has been associate editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology and Chair of the International Network for EconomicMethodology.Jeroen Van Bouwel is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science and a Visiting Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Moral Science at Ghent University, Belgium. His research areas include philosophy of the social sciences, social epistemology and the relations between science and democracy. His work has appeared in, inter alia, Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Economics & Philosophy, Social Epistemology, Perspectives on Science, History and Theory, Journal for General Philosophy of Science as well as in numerous collected volumes, handbooks and encyclopaedias. His books include The Social Sciences and Democracy (2009, editor) and Scientific Explanation (2013, co-authored with Erik Weber and Leen De Vreese).

• AcknowledgmentsList of Contributors Chapter 1. Putting Philosophy of Political Science on the map - Harold Kincaid and Jeroen Van Bouwel Part 1. Analyzing Basic Frameworks in Political ScienceChapter 2. The Biology of Politics: Some Limitations and Reasons for Caution - Jonathan KaplanChapter 3. The Biological Aspects of Political Attitudes - David Henderson and Stephen SchneiderChapter 4. Rational Choice Explanations in Political Science - Catherine Herfeld and Johannes MarxChapter 5. Strategic Theory of Norms for Empirical Applications in Political Science and Political Economy - Don Ross, Wynn C. Stirling and Luca TummoliniChapter 6. Explaining Institutional Change - Emrah Aydinonat and Petri YlikoskiChapter 7. Public Choice vs Social Choice as Theories of Collective Action - Jesús Zamora-BonillaChapter 8. Nineteen Kinds of Theories about Mechanisms that Every Social Science Graduate Student Should Know - Andrew Bennett and Benjamin Mishkin Part 2. Methods in Political Science, Debates and Reconciliations Chapter 9. Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy - Sharon CrasnowChapter 10. Qualitative Research in Political Science - Julie ZahleChapter 11. Interpretivism versus Positivism in an Age of Causal Inference - Janet Lawler and David WaldnerChapter 12. Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA): A pluralistic approach to causal inference - Federica Russo and Benoît RihouxChapter 13. Mixed methods research and the variety of evidence in political science - Jaakko Kuorikoski and Caterina MarchionniChapter 14. Generalization, case studies, and within-case causal inference: Large-N Qualitative Analysis - Gary Goertz and Stephan HaggardChapter 15. Process Tracing: Defining the Undefinable - Christopher ClarkeChapter 16. Process Tracing: Process Tracing: Causation and Levels of Analysis - Keith DowdingChapter 17. Interventions in Political Science - Peter JohnChapter 18. Lab Experiments in Political Science through the Lens of Experimental Economics - Andre Hofmeyr and Harold Kincaid Part 3. Purposes and Uses of Political Science Chapter 19. Philosophy of Science Issues in Clientelism Research - Harold Kincaid, Miquel Pellicer and Eva WegnerChapter 20. External Validity in Philosophy and Political Science: Three Paradoxes - Maria Jiménez-BuedoChapter 21. Context, Contextualization and Case-Study Research - Attilia RuzzeneChapter 22. Prediction, history and political science - Robert Northcott Part 4. Political Science in Society: Values, Expertise and Progress Chapter 23. Taking Feminism Seriously in Political Science: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialog - Season Hoard, Laci Hubbard-Mattix, Amy G. Mazur and Samantha NollChapter 24. Dealing with Values in Political Science - Jeroen Van BouwelChapter 25. Positivism and Value Free Ideals in Political Science - Harold KincaidChapter 26. Political Experts, Expertise, and Expert Judgment - Julian ReissChapter 27. Progress in International Politics: The Democratic Peace Debate - Fred Chernoff

In this volume, an international group of 40 scholars have written about various issues and topics, explaining how the philosophy of science interweaves with the process of political science. The 27 chapters look at research methodologies and theories and examines how to apply scientific rigor to provide empirical evidence data that can be professionally analyzed. Hopefully, these methods will lead to better public policies through informed decisions...Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, and professionals.