Under the rubric of “Reader’s view”, I will post short reviews of books, mostly from the field of social science methods.

In the case study literature, one new pair of terms has been established by the field that concerns the distinction between data set observations and causal process observations . In short, Collier, Brady, and Seawright (2004: Sources of Leverage in Causal Inference: Toward an Alternative View of Methodology. Brady, Henry E. and David Collier (eds.): Rethinking Social Inquiry.

At the end of last week, I came across a blog entry by Olaf Storbeck, reporting that a rising star from German business economics, Prof. Ulrich Lichtenthaler, is faced with numerous inquiries concerning his publishing record. Two journals have already retracted three of his articles and additional articles are under scrutiny.

The current version (vol.

Alt-Bundespräsident Roman Herzog wird von Focus mit den Worten zitiert: „Im Prinzip ist die Fünf-Prozent-Hürde nicht mehr zeitgemäß. Eigentlich müssten wir die Hürde nach oben setzen.“ Die Begründung: Vor dem Hintergrund von immer mehr kleineren Parteien werde der Bundeskanzler/die Bundeskanzlerin ansonsten „nicht mehr von einer großen Mehrheit der Bevölkerung getragen“. Dies sieht Herzog als eine Gefährdung der parlamentarischen Demokratie.

Recently, Frontal 21 – a German newscast – reported about the handling of error in treatments under German health care law (about which I am not an expert). A lawyer specializing in health care law explained that it is very difficult to win lawsuits against medical doctors (MD’s) because the patient claiming to experience treatment error has to substantiate this claim (except for grave treatment error). Particularly problematic are cases where

The current APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter is dedicated to “Doing Comparative Politics Elsewhere” (i.e. , outside of the US). Thomas Plümper contributes a discussion on Comparative Politics in Europe. In brief, Plümper argues that, until recently, the field of Comparative Politics (CP) has been dominated by qualitative methods.

Research on causal mechanisms is a growth industry, with the largest percentage of studies falling into the camp of qualitative research. The reason for this is the admonition that correlation is not causation, implying the claim that valid causal inference requires evidence on causal mechanisms.