Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T05:06:15.593Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias in Comparative Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Barbara Geddes
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article demonstrates how the selection of cases for study on the basis of outcomes on the dependent variable biases conclusions. It first lays out the logic of explanation and shows how it is violated when only cases that have achieved the outcome of interest are studied. It then examines three well-known and highly regarded studies in the field of comparative politics, comparing the conclusions reached in the original work with a test of the arguments on cases selected without regard for their position on the dependent variable. In each instance, conclusions based on the uncorrelated sample differ from the original conclusions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 2 , 1990 , pp. 131 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1991 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achen, Christopher. 1986. The Statistical Analysis of Quasi-Experiments. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Achen, Christopher, and Snidal, Duncan. 1989. “Rational Deterrence Theory and Comparative Case Studies.” World Politics 41: 143–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique. 1973. “Associated Dependent Development: Theoretical and Practical Implications.” In Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, Policies, and Future, ed. Stepan, Alfred. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Deyo, Frederic. 1984. “Export Manufacturing and Labor: The Asian Case.” In Labor in the Capitalist Economy, ed. Bergquist, Charles. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
Deyo, Frederic. 1987. “State and Labor: Modes of Political Exclusion in East Asian Development.” In The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, ed. Deyo, Frederic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gonçalves, Reinaldo, and Barros, Amir Coelho. 1982. ‘Tendências do termos de troca: A tese de Prébisch e a economia brasileira—1850/1979” [Tendencies in the Terms of Trade: The Prébisch Thesis and the Brazilian Economy, 1850-1979]. Pesquisa e Planejamento Econômico 12 (1): 109–31.Google Scholar
Haberler, Gottfried. 1961. ‘Terms of Trade and Economic Development.” In Economic Development for Latin America, ed. Ellis, Howard S. and Wallich, Henry C. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephan. 1986. “The Newly Industrializing Countries in the International System.” World Politics 38: 343–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. 1973. Journeys Toward Progress: Studies of Economic Policy-Making in Latin America. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers. 1987. “Political Institutions and Economic Performance: The Government-Business Relationship in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.” In The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, ed. Deyo, Frederic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
King, Gary. 1989. Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Koo, Hagen. 1987. “The Interplay of State, Social Class, and World System in East Asian Development: The Cases of South Korea and Taiwan.” In The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism, ed. Deyo, Frederic. Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo. 1973. Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism: Studies in South American Politics. Berkeley: University of California Institute of International Studies, Politics of Modernization Series, no. 9.Google Scholar
Prébisch, Raúl. 1950. The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems. New York: United Nations.Google Scholar
Ramos, Joseph. 1986. Neo-Conservative Economics in the Southern Cone of Latin America, 1973-1983. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Skocpol, Theda. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. Department of State. 1981. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1980. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of State. 1989. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1988. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Valenzuela, Arturo. 1978. The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
World Bank. 1984. World Development Report 1984. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
World Bank. 1988. World Development Report 1988. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar