Political Science

Political science is best defined in comparison to political philosophy: one attempts to understand politics from first principles, reasoned outward, in a coherent and consistent theory; the other attempts to understand politics from observations and theories of what explains the variance therein. This page addresses the latter.

Comparative Politics

Pretty much everything where states are the unit of analysis.

• Democratization

• International Development

Political Parties and Movements

Comparative politics methods applied to non-states. There is some overlap with public choice theory (esp. institutional design).

• Critical Elections Theory

• Issues Evolution Model

• Party Polarization

Public Choice and Social Choice Theory

Public choice and social choice are highly interconnected. In general, public choice seeks to be strictly positive, while social choice leans into philosophy and normative study. Like, 'given a voting system, which agent has most control' vs. 'what is the most fair voting system'. But the theorists fundamentally speak the same language, and it's more coherent to group them together by field of study.

• Institutional Design

• Median Voter Theorem

• Pivotal Politics Model

Political Economy

• CAGE Distance Framework

• Outbidding

• Wilson-Lowi Matrix

International Relations

• Bargaining Model of War

• Constructivism

• Institutionalism

• Rationalism

• Realism

Miscellany

• Affective Polarization

• Southern exceptionalism

• Some resources on this wiki:

  • listings of states and city-states

  • listings of empires (including de facto empires)

Reading Notes

Note: reading notes for the above topics are listed on the respective pages, not here.

• Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, William L. Riordon, 1905

• England in the Age of the American Revolution, Lewis Namier, 1931

• Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City, Robert Dahl, 1961

• Hard and Soft Law in International Governance, Kenneth Abbott and Duncan Snidal, 2000

• City Diplomacy: From City-States to Global Cities, Raffaele Marchetti, 2021

• Economic Sanctions as a Foreign Policy Tool, Michael Klein and Daniel W. Drezner, 2024

Data Notes

• Relevant government agencies, which link to many data notes:

  • BJS

  • BLS

  • Census Bureau

• ALICE Project

• ANES

• GSS

• V-Dem

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