Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T17:39:34.507Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“New Political History”: Some Statistical Questions Raised

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

William G. Shade
William G. Shade*
Affiliation:
Lehigh University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In the last two decades, the most interesting new perspectives on the history of American voting behavior have come from a small group of historians writing what Bogue (1968) termed the “New Political History.” While members of this group have been characterized by theoretical and methodological concerns that transcend their interest in quantitative analysis, they have emphasized the use of statistics in historical research. At first, this technical innovation awed traditional historians and limited critical commentary on the techniques employed by the “new” historians. Recently, however, both the substantive findings and the methods of these historians have received increasing scrutiny Wright, 1973; McCormick, 1974; Kousser, 1976).

Type
Research Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , Spring 1981 , pp. 171 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1981

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

Alexander, T., Elmore, P., Lowrey, F., and Skinner, M. (1966) “The basis of Alabama’s antebellum two party system.” Alabama Rev. 19: 243–276.Google Scholar
Alker, H. R. (1969) “A typology of ecological fallacies,’ pp. 69–86 in Dogan, M. and Rokkan, S. (eds.) Quantitative Ecological Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.Google Scholar
Benson, L. (1963) The Concept of Jacksonian Democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Berthoff, R. (1971) An Unsettled People: Order and Disorder in American History. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Berthoff, R. (1965) “The social order of the Anthracite Region, 1825-1902.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 89: 261–291.Google Scholar
Berthoff, R. (1960) “The American social order: a conservative hypothesis.” Amer. Historical Rev. 65: 495–514.Google Scholar
Blalock, H. M. (1967) “Causal inferences, closed populations and measures of association.” Amer. Pol. Science Rev. 61: 130–136.Google Scholar
Bogue, A. G. (1968) “United States: The ‘new’ political history.” J. of Contemporary History 3: 5–27.Google Scholar
Boudon, R. (1974) The Logic of Sociological Explanation. Baltimore: Penguin.Google Scholar
Boudon, R. (1968) “A new look at correlation analysis,” pp. 199–235 in Blalock, H. M. Jr. and Blalock, A. B. (eds.) Methodology in Social Research. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Burnham, W. D. (1970) Critical Elections and the Mainsprings of American Politics. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Cartwright, D. S. (1969) “Ecological variables,” pp. 155–218 in Borgatta, E. F. (ed.) Sociological Methodology. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1971) “Multiple regression as a general data-analytic system,” pp. 421–440 in Lieberman, B. (ed.) Contemporary Problems in Statistics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Cooley, W. W. and Lohnes, P. R. (1962) Multivariate Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Cowan, R. S. (1972) “Francis Galton’s statistical ideas: the influence of eugenics.” Isis 63: 509–528.Google Scholar
Dollar, C. and Jensen, R. (1971) Historian’s Guide to Statistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Duncan, O. D., Cuzzort, R. P., and Duncan, B. (1961) Statistical Geography. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Formisano, R. P. (1971) The Birth of Mass Political Parties. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Formisano, R. P. (1969) “Analyzing American voting behavior, 1830-1860: methods.” Historical Methods Newsletter 2: 1–12.Google Scholar
Galtung, J. (1969) Theory and Methods of Social Research. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gold, D. (1964) “Some problems in generalizing aggregate associations,” Amer. Behavioral Scientists 8: 16–18.Google Scholar
Goodman, L. (1959) “Some alternatives to ecological correlation.” Amer. J. of Sociology 64: 610–625.Google Scholar
Hackney, S. (1969) Populism to Progressivism in Alabama. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Hirschi, T. and Selvin, H. C. (1967) Delinquency Research. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Holt, M. F. (1969) Forging a Majority. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Horst, P. (1966) “An overview of the essentials of multivariate analysis methods,” pp. 129–152 in Cattell, R. B. (ed.) Handbook of Multivariate Experimental Psychology. New York: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Jones, E. T. (1974) “Using ecological regression.” J. of Interdisciplinary History 5: 593–596.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, E. T. (1972) “Ecological inference and electoral analysis.” J. of Interdisciplinary History 2: 249–262.Google Scholar
Kerlinger, F. N. and Pedhazur, E. J. (1973) Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.Google Scholar
Kish, L. (1959) “Some statistical problems in research design.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 24: 328–338.Google Scholar
Kleppner, P. J. (1970) The Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics, 1850-1900. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kleppner, P. J. (1966) “Lincoln and the immigrant vote: a case of religions polarization.” Mid- America 48: 176–195.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. M. (1976) “The ‘new political history’: a methodological critique.” Rev. in American History 4: 1–14.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. M. (1974) The Shaping of Southern Politics. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Kousser, J. M. (1973) “Ecological regression and analysis of past politics.” J. of Interdisciplinary History 4: 237–262.Google Scholar
Kruskal, W. H. (1968) “Significance of tests.” Inter. Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 14: 239–250.Google Scholar
Kuh, E. and Meyer, J. R. (1955) “Correlation and regression estimates when the data are ratios.” Econometrics 23: 400–416.Google Scholar
Lazarsfeld, P. K. (1972) “The algebra of dichotomous systems,” and “Regression analysis with dichotomous attributes,” pp. 193–214 in Lazarsfeld, P. K., Pasanella, A. K., and Rosenberg, M. (eds.) Continuities in the Language of Social Research. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Lichtman, A. J. (1974) “Correlation, regression and the ecological fallacy: a critique.” J. of Interdisciplinary History 5: 414–433.Google Scholar
Lieberman, B. (1971) Contemporary Problems in Statistics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lurie, W. (1970) “The impertinent questioner: the scientists guide to the statistician’s mind,” pp. 117–123 in Miller, D. (ed.) Handbook of Research Design and Social Measurement. New York: David McKay.Google Scholar
McCormick, R. L. (1974) “Ethno-cultural interpretations of nineteenth-century American voting behavior.” Pol. Science Q. 89: 351–377.Google Scholar
McCrary, P., Miller, C., and Baum, D. (1978) “Class and party in the secession crisis: voting behavior in the deep South.” J. of Interdisciplinary History 8: 429–457.Google Scholar
McGinnis, R. (1960) “Randomization and inference in sociological research.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 25: 408–444.Google Scholar
Morrison, D. E. and Henkel, R. E. (1970) The Significance Test Controversy. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Mosteller, R. and Bush, R. R. (1954) “Selected quantative techniques,” pp. 289–344 in Lindzey, G. (ed.) Handbook of Social Psychology: Vol. I, Theory and Method. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Murphey, M. G. (1973) Our Knowledge of the Historical Past. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Peterson, R. (1970) “The reaction to a heterogeneous society: a behavioral and quantitative analysis of northern voting behavior, 1845-1870, Pennsylvania a test case.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Robinson, W. S. (1950) “Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 15: 351–357.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, M. (1968) The Logic of Survey Analysis. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Selvin, H. C. (1957) “A critique of tests of significance in survey research.” Amer. Soc. Rev. 22: 519–527.Google Scholar
Shade, W. G. (1972a) Banks or No Banks: The Money Question in Western Politics, 1832-1865. Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Shade, W. G. (1972b) “Pennsylvania politics and the Jacksonian Period: a case study, Northampton County, 1828-1844.” Pennsylvania History 39: 313–333.Google Scholar
Shade, W. G. and Gudelunas, W. A. (1976) Before the Molly Maguires: The Emergence of the Ethno-Religious Factor in the Politics of the Lower Anthracite Region, 1844-1872. New York: Arno Press.Google Scholar
Shively, W. P. (1972) “Voting stability and the nature of party attachments in the Weimar Republic.” Amer. Pol. Science Rev. 66: 1203–1275.Google Scholar
Siegal, S. (1956) Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stevens, S. S. (1946) “On the theory of scales of measurement,” pp. 3–8 in Lieberman, B. (ed.) Contemporary Problems in Statistics. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Stokes, D. (1969) “Cross-level inferences as a game against nature,” pp. 62–83 in Bernd, J. L. (ed.) Mathematical Applications in Political Science IV. Charlottesville, VI: Univ. of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Tufte, E. R. (1974) Data Analysis for Politics and Policy. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Tufte, E. R. (1970) “Improving data analysis in political science,” pp. 437–449 in Tufte, E. R. (ed.) The Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Tukey, J. W. (1954) “Causation, regression and path analysis,” pp. 35–66 in Kempthorn, O., Bancroft, T. A., Gowan, J. W., and Lush, J. L. (eds.) Statistics and Mathematics in Biology. Ames, IO: Iowa State Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Tukey, J. W. and Wilk, M. B. (1970) “Data analysis and statistics: techniques and approaches,” pp. 370–399 in Tufte, E. R. (ed.) The Quantitative Analysis of Social Problems. Reading MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Walker, H. M. (1931) Studies in the History of Statistical Method. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Wallis, W. A. and Roberts, H. V. (1956) Statistics: A New Approach. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Wright, J. W. (1973) “The ethnocultural model of voting: a behavioral and historical critique.” Amer. Behavioral Scientist 16: 653–674.Google Scholar
Wyman, R. E. (1968) “Wisconsin ethnic groups and the election of 1890.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 51: 269–294.Google Scholar