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Methodological Requirement (methodological + requirement)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences50%

Selected Abstracts

The Limits of Rational Choice: New Institutionalism in the Test Bed of Central Banking Politics in Australia

POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 3 2002
Stephen Bell
This paper tests the explanatory capacities of different versions of new institutionalism by examining the Australian case of a general transition in central banking practice and monetary politics: namely, the increased emphasis on low inflation and central bank independence. Standard versions of rational choice institutionalism largely dominate the literature on the politics of central banking, but this approach (here termed RC1) fails to account for Australian empirics. RC1 has a tendency to establish actor preferences exogenously to the analysis; actors'motives are also assumed a priori; actor's preferences are depicted in relatively static, ahistorical terms. And there is the tendency, even a methodological requirement, to assume relatively simple motives and preference sets among actors, in part because of the game theoretic nature of RC1 reasoning. It is possible to build a more accurate rational choice model by re-specifying and essentially updating the context, incentives and choice sets that have driven rational choice in this case. Enter RC2. However, this move subtly introduces methodological shifts and new theoretical challenges. By contrast, historical institutionalism uses an inductive methodology. Compared with deduction, it is arguably better able to deal with complexity and nuance. It also utilises a dynamic, historical approach, and specifies (dynamically) endogenous preference formation by interpretive actors. Historical institutionalism is also able to more easily incorporate a wider set of key explanatory variables and incorporate wider social aggregates. Hence, it is argued that historical institutionalism is the preferred explanatory theory and methodology in this case. [source]

Anthropology, liberalism and female genital cutting

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 6 2009
Carlos D. Londoño Sulkin
This essay is the reaction of a non-specialist on Africanist ethnography and female genital cutting to Sierra Leonese American Scholar Dr Fuambai Ahmadu's work on these matters. It argues that some anti-FGM perceptions and rhetoric are parochial and illiberal, and calls for anthropologists to take counsel both from our discipline's methodological requirement actually to pay attention to what the people we write about say and do over extended periods of time, and to its age-old demand that we be critical of our own premises, before adopting any purportedly liberal campaign to support or challenge this or that social practice. [source]

Conceptual and Design Essentials for Evaluating Mechanisms of Change

ALCOHOLISM, Issue 2007
Matthew K. Nock
Background:, Considerable progress has been made toward the development of evidence-based treatments for a wide range of psychological disorders; however, little is known about the mechanisms through which these treatments actually lead to clinical change. Although the use of traditional randomized controlled treatment designs and tests of statistical mediation have significantly advanced understanding of psychological treatments, they are insufficient to test mechanisms of change. Method:, This article outlines the conceptual and methodological requirements for evaluating mechanisms of change, highlights the importance of such a focus, and offers specific recommendations for research aimed at elucidating change mechanisms. Results and Conclusions:, Conceptualizing and conducting studies that test mechanisms of change requires substantial modifications to traditional research designs, but doing so will significantly enhance scientific understanding as well as the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical interventions. [source]

Théodule Ribot's ambiguous positivism: Philosophical and epistemological strategies in the founding of French scientific psychology

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Issue 2 2004
Vincent Guillin
Théodule Ribot (1839,1916) is regarded by many historians of psychology as the "father" of the discipline in France. Ribot contributed to the development of a "new psychology" independent from philosophy, relying on the methods of the natural sciences. However, such an epistemological transition encountered fierce opposition from both the champions of the old-fashioned metaphysical psychology and the representatives of the "scientific spirit." This article focuses on the objections raised by the latter, and especially philosophers of science, against the possibility of a scientific psychology. For instance, according to Auguste Comte, psychology does not satisfy certain basic methodological requirements. To overcome these objections, Ribot, in his La Psychologie Anglaise Contemporaine (1870/1914), devised an epistemological strategy that amounted to invoking criticisms of Comte's views made by other representatives of the positivist school, such as John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]