Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-p566r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T23:57:50.529Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Updating Bayesian(s): A Critical Evaluation of Bayesian Process Tracing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2020

Sherry Zaks*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California, Department of Political Science, 3518 Trousdale Pkwy, VKC 327, Los Angeles, CA90087, USA. Email: szaks@usc.edu
*

Abstract

Given the increasing quantity and impressive placement of work on Bayesian process tracing, this approach has quickly become a frontier of qualitative research methods. Moreover, it has dominated the process-tracing modules at the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR) and the American Political Science Association (APSA) meetings for over five years, rendering its impact even greater. Proponents of qualitative Bayesianism make a series of strong claims about its contributions and scope of inferential validity. Four claims stand out: (1) it enables causal inference from iterative research, (2) the sequence in which we evaluate evidence is irrelevant to inference, (3) it enables scholars to fully engage rival explanations, and (4) it prevents ad hoc hypothesizing and confirmation bias. Notwithstanding the stakes of these claims and breadth of traction this method has received, no one has systematically evaluated the promises, trade-offs, and limitations that accompany Bayesian process tracing. This article evaluates the extent to which the method lives up to the mission. Despite offering a useful framework for conducting iterative research, the current state of the method introduces more bias than it corrects for on numerous dimensions. The article concludes with an examination of the opportunity costs of learning Bayesian process tracing and a set of recommendations about how to push the field forward.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology.

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.)

Footnotes

Contributing Editor: Xun Pang

References

Abell, P. 2009. “Comparative Narratives in Sociological Explanation.” Sociological Methods & Research 38(1):3870.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asch, S. E. 1946. “Forming Impressions of Personality.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 41:258290.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barrenechea, R., and Mahoney, J.. 2019. “A Set-Theoretic Approach to Bayesian Process Tracing.” Sociological Methods & Research 48(3):451484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beach, D., and Pedersen, R. B.. 2012. Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines . First ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Beach, D., and Pedersen, R. B.. 2019. Process-Tracing Methods: Foundations and Guidelines . Second ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, A. 2009. “Process Tracing: A Bayesian Perspective.” In The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology , edited by Box-Stefensmeier, J., Brady, H., and Collier, D., 702722. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. 2010. “Process Tracing and Causal Inference.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards , Second ed., edited by Brady, H. E. and Collier, D.. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. 2014. “Process Tracing with Bayes: Moving Beyond the Criteria of Necessity and Sufficiency.” Qualitative and Multimethod Research 12(1):4651.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. 2015a. “Disciplining Our Conjectures: Systematizing Process Tracing with Bayesian Analysis.” In Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool , edited by Bennett, A. and Checkel, J. T., 276298. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. 2015b. “Using Process Tracing to Improve Policy Making: The (Negative) Case of the 2003 Intervention in Iraq.” Security Studies 24(2):228238.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bennett, A., and Checkel, J. T., eds. 2015. Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, A., Fairfield, T., and Soifer, H.. 2019. “Comparative Methods and Process Tracing.” American Political Science Association Organized Section for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, Qualitative Transparency Deliberations, Working Group Final Reports, Report III.1 (January 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3333405 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3333405.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, H. E. 2006. “Toward a Pluralistic Vision of Methodology.” Political Analysis 14(3):353368.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brady, H. E., Collier, D., and Seawright, J.. 2010. “Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference.” In Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards , Second ed., edited by Brady, H. E. and Collier, D., 161199. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Collier, D. 2011. “Understanding Process Tracing.” PS: Political Science and Politics 44(4):823830.Google Scholar
Crano, W. D. 1977. “Primacy Versus Recency in Retention of Information and Opinion Change.” The Journal of Social Psychology 101:8796.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairfield, T., and Charman, A.. 2017. “Explicit Bayesian Analysis for Process Tracing: Guidelines, Opportunities, and Caveats.” Political Analysis 25(3):363380.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fairfield, T., and Charman, A.. 2019. “A Dialogue with the Data: The Bayesian Foundations of Iterative Research in Qualitative Social Science.” Perspectives on Politics 17(1):154167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
George, A. L., and Bennett, A.. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
George, A. L., and McKeown, T. J.. 1985. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Goertz, G., and Mahoney, J.. 2012. A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, P. A. 2006. “Systematic Process Analysis: When and How to Use It.” European Management Review 3(1):2431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, M., and Jacobs, A.. 2015. “Mixing Methods: A Bayesian Approach.” American Political Science Review 109(4):653673.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keynes, J. M. 1989 [1923]. A Tract on Monetary Reform . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kurtz, M. 2009. “The Social Foundations of Institutional Order: Reconsidering War and the ‘Resource Curse’ in Third World State Building.” Politics and Society 37(4):479520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, E. S. 2016. “Can the Biomedical Research Cycle be a Model for Political Science? Perspectives on Politics 14(4):10541066.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahoney, J. 2012. “The Logic of Process Tracing Tests in the Social Sciences.” Sociological Methods & Research 41(4):570597.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKeown, T. J. 1999. “Case Studies and the Statistical Worldview: Reivew of King, Keohane, and Verba’s Designing Social Inquiry.” International Organization 53(1):161190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moravcsik, A. 2014. “Transparency: The Revolution in Qualitative Research.” PS: Political Science and Politics 47(1):4853.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. 1981. Reason, Truth, and History . Kindle ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russett, B. 1990. Controlling the Sword: The Democratic Governance of National Security . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schultz, K. 2001. Democracy and Coercive Diplomacy . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannenwald, N. 2007. The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons Since 1945 . New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Evera, S. 1997. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science . Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, E. J. 2003. Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yom, S. 2018. “Analytic Transparency, Radical Honesty, and Strategic Initiatives.” PS: Political Science and Politics 51(2):416421.Google Scholar
Zaks, S. 2017. “Relationships Among Rivals (RAR): A Framework for Analyzing Contending Hypotheses in Process-Tracing.” Political Analysis 25(3):344362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Zaks supplementary material

Zaks supplementary material

Download Zaks supplementary material(File)
File 102.3 KB