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Judgment and Measurement in Political Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2012

Andreas Schedler
Andreas Schedler
Affiliation:
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas (CIDE), Mexico City, and IPSA. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Standard methodological advice in political science warns against the distortion of measurement decisions by judgmental elements. Judgment is subjective, common wisdom asserts, it produces opaque, biased, and unreliable data. This article, by contrast, argues that judgment is a critical intersubjective ingredient of political measurement that needs to be acknowledged and rationalized, rather than exorcised.

Type
Research Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 21 - 36
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2012

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