Substance and Methods in APD Research

Extract

John Gerring's call for greater methodological self-consciousness and rigor in APD scholarship is valuable in several ways. Although some APD scholars deploy formal models and statistical analyses of large n data sets, many do not. Today, those choices inevitably raise questions of the rigor of such work. Gerring's essay usefully pushes us to provide answers. I also generally agree with his sense of what appropriate methods involve. The fact that his recommendations are fairly standard and noncontroversial then poses the further issue Steve Skowronek stresses: whether there is any distinctive method or substance that defines APD scholarship as a field.