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Qualitative Leverage and the Epistemology of Expert Opinion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Sanford C. Gordon  and
Alastair Smith
Sanford C. Gordon
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. e-mail: [email protected]
Alastair Smith
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, New York University, 726 Broadway, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10003. e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

We discuss the motivation for integrating qualitative information in statistical models of complex, partially observable causal mechanisms and suggest ways to minimize the dangers posed by Braumoeller and Kirpichevsky. We stress the importance of linking our statistical estimators to underlying theories of the data generating process, qualitative or otherwise.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , Summer 2005 , pp. 280 - 291
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

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