Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives

Published by Princeton University Press 1997

Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics

Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives

Edited by: Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691215075

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

Philip E. Tetlock is Harold E. Burtt Professor of Psychology and Political Science at the Ohio State University. He is coeditor of Psychology and Social Policy and coauthor of Reasoning and Choice: Explorations in Political Psychology. Aaron Belkin is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

"Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics is an important book for all social scientists, not only those who study international relations. The introductory paper, outlining different ways of using counterfactual arguments, is likely to become a standard reading in courses on methodology and research design. Many of the other chapters are outstanding; some are brilliant. When I next teach my graduate seminar on research design, this book will be on the required reading list."—Robert Keohane, Duke University

"[This] is an important book for all social scientists, not only those who study international relations. . . . When I teach my next graduate seminar on research design, this book will be on the required reading list."—Robert Keohane, Duke University

"The book sets out to examine the many roles that counterfactuals and counterfactual reasoning play in the study of world politics. It has many merits. The quality of the papers is high. It is well edited by Philip E. Tetlock and Aaron Belkin. It succeeds very well in building on earlier discussions of counterfactuals in social science, from Weber to Elster, and linking them with a wide range of concrete problems and issues in international relations."---Andrew Hurrell, The Times Literary Supplement

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Contributors Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
PART ONE: Counterfactual Inference: Form and Function
1. Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics: Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives Philip Tetlock and Aaron Belkin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
2. Causes and Counterfactuals in Social Science: Exploring an Analogy between Cellular Automata and Historical Processes James Fearon Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	39
PART TWO: Counterfactual Analysis of Particular Events
3. Counterfactual Reasoning in Western Studies of Soviet Politics and Foreign Relations George Breslauer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
4. Confronting Hitler and Its Consequences Yuen Khong Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	95
5. Back to the Past: Counterfactuals and the Cuban Missile Crisis Richard Lebow and Janice Stein Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
6. Counterfactual Reasoning in Motivational Analysis: U.S. Policy toward Iran Richard Herrmann and Michael Fischerkeller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
PART THREE: Counterfactual Analysis of Classes of Events
7. Counterfactuals about War and Its Absence Bruce Russett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
8. Using Counterfactuals in Historical Analysis: Theories of Revolution Edgar Kiser and Margaret Levi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
PART FOUR: Counterfactuals and Game Theory
9. Counterfactuals and International Affairs: Some Insights from Game Theory Bruce Mesquita Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
10. Off-the-Path Behavior: A Game-Theoretic Approach to Counterfactuals and Its Implications for Political and Historical Analysis Barry Weingast Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	230
PART FIVE: Computer and Mental Simulations of Possible Worlds
11. Rerunning History: Counterfactual Simulation in World Politics Lars Cederman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
12. Counterfactuals, Past and Future Steven Weber Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	268
PART SIX: Commentaries
1. Conceptual Blending and Counterfactual Argument in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Mark Turner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
2. Psychological Biases in Counterfactual Thought Experiments James Olson, Neal Roese and Ronald Deibert Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
3. Counterfactual Inferences as Instances of Statistical Inferences Robyn Dawes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	301
4. Counterfactuals, Causation, and Complexity Robert Jervis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	309

Language: English
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;College/higher education;
Pages
- Main content: 344
Illustrations
- Other: 8 tables 16 line illus.
Keywords: Azerbaijan crisis; Bay of Pigs; experimental method; data scarcity; Goldstone; Jack; Halifax; Lord; hindsight; Iranian revolution; Jowitt; Ken; Khrushchev; N.; Riser; E.; legitimacy issues; Leninism; moral catastrophes; Napoleon; Nash equilibrium; nomothetic counterfactuals; optimality constraints; perfect equilibrium; policy makers; proximity criterion; Qavam; reification; Russian revolution; Stalinism; structuralism; Thucydides; tripolar world

eBook

Published: June 30, 2020
ISBN: 9780691215075