Promoting clearly specified predictive explanations of democratic processes, whether in mathematical, graphical, propositional or other forms. Unifying characteristics must be to generalise across democracies wherever and whenever they occur: and to predict/postdict specific outcomes validated against independently collected data. This allows explanations to be accepted as correct (at least until another clearly specified theory predicts outcomes better) and helps relate them within a broader synthesis as is already happening with research on political representation. This facilitates integrated, cumulative, theory-led data analysis rather than qualified generalisations from available data, bringing political science closer to core scientific aims and methods.
Predictive theorising is the core scientific approach to explanation, as opposed to narratives focussed on specific events or axiomatic reasoning from a priori assumptions – both however drawing on underlying theories of what is relevant. Rigorously clarifying and testing such theories is thus important for the whole of the discipline whatever the explanatory approach adopted. This is what PPT does, facilitating a synthesis of validated and unambiguous theories as a unifying basis for research and data analysis.
Despite its promise, PPT has not yet seen its potential for cumulative research realised. A surprising number of predictive explanations have already been produced and validated, mainly in areas touching on democratic decision-making and policy representation. But they have only been brought together and synthesised recently (Budge 2019). Much remains to be done, starting with a systematic inventory of all the validated predictive theories that have emerged in the various fields of political science up to now – not just policy representation.
In promoting PPT the Workshop has methodological as well as substantive aims – primarily in extending knowledge of the approach and of its successes or failures where it has been applied and encouraging colleagues to take it up in their own research. Workshop participants will therefore be required to produce and present a validated predictive explanation in their own field as a condition of participation. Hopefully our own experience in organising Workshops and research groups focussing on innovative topics (notably the Manifesto Research Project) will help.
Ian Budge Politics: A Unified Introduction to How Democracy Works (Routledge, London and New York 2019) – comprehensively lists and interrelates validated predictive theories across political science
Ian Budge, Hans Keman, Michael McDonald and Paul Pennings Organising Democratic Choice (OUP, Oxford 2012) – presents and tests an Alternation Model of democratic representation
Ian Budge and Hans Keman Parties and Democracy (OUP, Oxford 1990, 1994) – specifies and tests predictive decision trees of Government Formation and Distribution of Ministries
O A Davis, A H Dempster, Aaron Wildavsky (1966) A Theory of the Budgetary Process American Political Science Review (60) pp529-547 (validated model of incremental change in financial allocations to government ministries)
Matthew S. Shugart and Rein Taagepera Seats from Votes (CUP, New York 2018) – mathematical relationships between two key variables in representational processes
Stuart Soroka and Chrisopher Wlezien Degrees of Democracy (CUP, Cambridge 2019) – presents and tests thermostatic theory of interactions between public policy initiatives and popular reactions
1: Where has Predictive Political Theorising been applied within Political Science?
2: How successful has it been compared to other methodological approaches?
3: Does it provide a general basis for theory-led data analysis?
4: Are there different types of predictive reasoning and how do they compare?
5: Can the workshop initiate a comprehensive survey of Predictive Political Theorising usage?
1: Papers sought in any field of descriptive political science at a comparative level.
