Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics (eBook)

Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives

Aaron Belkin, Philip E. Tetlock (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020
344 Seiten
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-21507-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Political scientists often ask themselves what might have been if history had unfolded differently: if Stalin had been ousted as General Party Secretary or if the United States had not dropped the bomb on Japan. Although scholars sometimes scoff at applying hypothetical reasoning to world politics, the contributors to this volume--including James Fearon, Richard Lebow, Margaret Levi, Bruce Russett, and Barry Weingast--find such counterfactual conjectures not only useful, but necessary for drawing causal inferences from historical data. Given the importance of counterfactuals, it is perhaps surprising that we lack standards for evaluating them. To fill this gap, Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin propose a set of criteria for distinguishing plausible from implausible counterfactual conjectures across a wide range of applications. The contributors to this volume make use of these and other criteria to evaluate counterfactuals that emerge in diverse methodological contexts including comparative case studies, game theory, and statistical analysis. Taken together, these essays go a long way toward establishing a more nuanced and rigorous framework for assessing counterfactual arguments about world politics in particular and about the social sciences more broadly.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.6.2020
• Zusatzinfo: 8 tables 16 line illus.
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Geschichtstheorie / Historik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Politik / Verwaltung ► Politische Theorie
• Schlagworte: Adolf Hitler • Aftermath of World War II • Ambiguity • Analogy • Anti-Americanism • Appeasement • Artificial World • assassination • asymmetry • Azerbaijan crisis • Bay of Pigs • Bias • Calculation • Cambridge University Press • Case study • Causality • Cellular Automaton • chaos theory • Cognitive Bias • complex adaptive system • computer simulation • consequent • Contingency (Philosophy) • Cosmological Argument • Counterfactual conditional • counterfactual history • Counterfactual Thinking • cuban missile crisis • Daniel Kahneman • data scarcity • Decision-Making • Democratic Peace Theory • Determinant • Determinism • Economic Growth • Emergence • estimation • Experimental Method • Explanation • Forecasting • foreign policy • Foreign policy of the United States • Goldstone, Jack • Great Power • Halifax, Lord • hindsight • hypothesis • Ideology • inference • Inquiry • Instance (computer science) • International Relations • Iranian Revolution • Jowitt, Ken • Khrushchev, N. • Legitimacy Issues • Leninism • Literature • Logic • Mental Space • Methodology • Mikhail Gorbachev • Mohammad Mosaddegh • moral catastrophes • Napoleon • Nash Equilibrium • Nazi Germany • Nazism • Neville Chamberlain • Nikita Khrushchev • nomothetic counterfactuals • Nuclear warfare • nuclear weapon • Occam's Razor • optimality constraints • perfect equilibrium • phenomenon • Philip E. Tetlock • Philosopher • philosophy of science • policy debate • policy makers • Political Science • Politician • Politics • possible world • Prediction • Princeton University Press • Principle • Probability • proximity criterion • Qavam • Rationality • reason • Reductio ad absurdum • reification • Requirement • Research Program • result • Riser, E. • Russian Revolution • school of thought • security dilemma • Selection bias • Simulation • skepticism • Social Science • Soviet Union • Stalinism • Static Analysis • Statistical hypothesis testing • Statistical Inference • Statistics • Structuralism • Suggestion • Superiority (short story) • theory • Theory of International Politics • Thought • Thought experiment • Thucydides • tripolar world • Uncertainty • war • World War I • World War II
• ISBN-10: 0-691-21507-3 / 0691215073
• ISBN-13: 978-0-691-21507-5 / 9780691215075