The transition from research question to theory is a crucial part of producing a good empirical research paper. A good theory explains patterns in data with a well-articulated “because” clause that specifies a causal mechanism linking the independent variable to the dependent variable. A good theory also identifies the scope conditions and assumptions under which it operates. Developing your theory, articulating definitions of its concepts, and fully explicating its causal mechanism are key components of this process; these are critical for later stages. This is part of why the theory is such an important part of empirical research: without a carefully-thought-out theory, empirical research doesn’t make much sense.

This chapter statistically tests the relationship between American hierarchy, property rights, and state capacity using mediation analysis. It finds that American economic hierarchy enhances property rights in partner states, indirectly strengthening state capacity. The analysis explores scope conditions and the interaction between security and economic hierarchy, highlighting the contrasting effects on state-building. The chapter discusses the implications of the quantitative results for cases like Afghanistan.

The concluding chapter summarizes the book’s argument and findings and describes its key contributions. It then turns to discuss potential theoretical limitations that pertain to the strategic behavior by citizens and incumbents, and potential scope conditions for the theory’s ability to explain incumbency bias in presidential and legislative elections. The chapter also examines the normative implications of the book’s main findings for the state of democracy in Latin America and the developing world more broadly. The chapter closes by touching on the book’s policy implications. Taken together, these findings challenge the conventional wisdom that incumbency bias is a form of failed accountability in which clientelism insulates officeholders from electoral control, or that corruption deprives citizens of the ability to select good representatives.The book instead suggests that incumbency bias is the natural result of properly functioning electoral accountability institutions in settings where citizens have low-quality information. While no panacea, the findings suggest that enhancing the quality of democracy requires improving institutional design and citizens’ knowledge.

In the final empirical chapter, I push beyond Senegal to look broadly across West Africa to assess the generalizability of my findings. Senegal is not the only West African state to display remarkable subnational variation in exposure to precolonial statehood nor to have recently undertaken decentralization reforms. I extend my coding of precolonial kingdoms to the subregion and match it to data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the Afrobarometer public opinion surveys to test the theory's generalizability. I find that areas of West Africa that were exposed to precolonial states have seen bigger gains in locally delivered public goods and that Afrobarometer respondents in these areas are more positive about their local governments and democratic practice than their counterparts in historically acephalous zones. While my theory is built around the specific legacies of precolonial statehood, the chapter's second half move beyond Africa to show the broader analytic leverage of the theory’s twin mechanisms of shared social identification and social network ties for Comparative Politics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of scope conditions for the argument.

Pavone analyzes how our evolving understanding of case-based causal inference via process-tracing should alter how we select cases for comparative inquiry. The chapter explicates perhaps the most influential and widely used means to conduct qualitative research involving two or more cases: Mill’s methods of agreement and difference. It then argues that the traditional use of Millian methods of case selection can lead us to treat cases as static units to be synchronically compared rather than as social processes unfolding over time. As a result, Millian methods risk prematurely rejecting and otherwise overlooking (1) ordered causal processes, (2) paced causal processes, and (3) equifinality, or the presence of multiple pathways that produce the same outcome. To address these issues, the chapter develops a set of recommendations to ensure the alignment of Millian methods of case selection with within-case sequential analysis.

In the final empirical chapter, I push beyond Senegal to look broadly across West Africa to assess the generalizability of my findings. Senegal is not the only West African state to display remarkable subnational variation in exposure to precolonial statehood nor to have recently undertaken decentralization reforms. I extend my coding of precolonial kingdoms to the subregion and match it to data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the Afrobarometer public opinion surveys to test the theory's generalizability. I find that areas of West Africa that were exposed to precolonial states have seen bigger gains in locally delivered public goods and that Afrobarometer respondents in these areas are more positive about their local governments and democratic practice than their counterparts in historically acephalous zones. While my theory is built around the specific legacies of precolonial statehood, the chapter's second half move beyond Africa to show the broader analytic leverage of the theory’s twin mechanisms of shared social identification and social network ties for Comparative Politics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of scope conditions for the argument.

Chapter 2 presents our core concepts, develops our theoretical logic, and derives hypotheses for empirical testing. The chapter defines our key terms and discusses the scope conditions on our theory. We then elaborate on what kinds of information are considered sensitive in our framework and describe the kinds of problems that can arise when such information is necessary for understanding compliance-related questions. We next expand on the necessary features of IOs’ confidentiality systems, providing concrete examples. The chapter concludes by developing our two core empirical expectations about the effect of confidentiality systems on the frequency of disclosures of sensitive information and on international cooperation.