Abstract
Quantitative historical analysis must be nested in a qualitative understanding of the empirical context if it is to be credible. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita’s analysis of the consequences of the Investiture Controversy (1075–1122) for the development of lay political authority and economic development illustrates this. They portray the Investiture Controversy and the concordats it produced as strengthening lay rulers’ power over bishop appointment, but the dominant view among historians is that it did the opposite. They also operationalize bishop alignment in a problematic way, whichmakes it very difficult to draw firm conclusions fromtheir quantitative analysis. Finally, they project amodern image of international agreements and state power onto a medieval period that looked very different, and their supporting qualitative evidence suffers from selection bias. The example shows how political scientists must do solid historical spadework before they model and interpret their data.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | The Journal of Politics |
| Volume | 86 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1083–1086 |
| Number of pages | 4 |
| ISSN | 0022-3816 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
Keywords
- historical context
- Investiture Controversy
- qualitative evidence
- quantitative historical analysis
- reading history backward
- selection bias