POLI 244 Lecture Notes - Nuclear Proliferation, Covariance, Natural Experiment
6 Aug 2012
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Document Summary
Nuclear proliferation, the rise of china, what can we do about terrorism, environmental degradation, etc. It is science in that it has broad, generalizable understandings, interpretations, predictions, causal relationships (theories) It seeks to make implicit ideas explicit by testing their validity. A theory is a statement of a causal relationship between two phenomena. The independent variable is the cause (x) and the dependent variable is the effect you are trying to explain (y). Dependent variables can be things like the breakout of a war, exchange rates, immigration, and the independent variable is what explains them- ex. Not all variables are equally powerful (useful) at predicting outcomes. Necessary conditions are when an independent variable must be present for the dependent variable to be present- ex. Cold weather (x) is necessary for snow (y). Sufficient conditions are where x by itself in sufficient to cause y without any other contributing factors.
