Lecture 40: Context, Control, and Critical Junctures in Comparative Politics
2019/6/11 13:52:18
Title：Context, Control, and Critical Junctures in Comparative PoliticsSpeaker： Professor Dan Slater from University of Michigan
Moderator： Prof. Zhong Yang
Time： 19:00-21:00 pm June 15th Saturday
Venue： Room 223, Xinjian Building
Abstract：
The most persuasive critical juncture arguments have always paid more attention to deeper local and historical contexts than discussions of the method in the abstract have readily allowed. More explicit attention to these deeper contexts would strengthen the critical juncture method as a central approach in the comparativist’s toolkit. While control can still play a helpful role in evaluating and properly weighting alternative explanations, it does not eliminate those rival explanations as thoroughly as is often supposed. More to the point, control plays iterally no role in establishing one’s own causal argument. Yet context, we argue, does.