Laboratory experiments are the type of study that most people have in mind when talking about experiments. In this chapter, we first discuss the strengths of laboratory experiments, which offer the highest degree of experimental control as compared to other types of experiments. Single factors can be manipulated according to the requirements of theories under highly controlled conditions. As such, laboratory experiments are well-placed to test theories. We then introduce a sociological laboratory experiment as a leading example, which we use as a reference for a discussion of several principles of laboratory research. Furthermore, we discuss a second goal of laboratory experiments, which is the establishment of empirical regularities in situations where theory does not provide sufficient guidance for deriving behavioral expectations. The chapter concludes with a short discussion of caveats for the analysis of sociological data generated in laboratory experiments.

This chapter addresses the often-misunderstood concept of validity. Much of the methodological discussion around sociological experiments is framed in terms of internal and external validity. The standard view is that the more we ensure that the experimental treatment is isolated from potential confounds (internal validity), the more unlikely it is that the experimental results can be representative of phenomena of the outside world (external validity). However, other accounts describe internal validity as a prerequisite of external validity: Unless we ensure internal validity of an experiment, little can be said of the outside world. We contend in this chapter that problems of either external or internal validity do not necessarily depend on the artificiality of experimental settings or on the laboratory–field distinction between experimental designs. We discuss the internal–external distinction and propose instead a list of potential threats to the validity of experiments that includes "usual suspects" like selection, history, attrition, and experimenter demand effects and elaborate on how these threats can be productively handled in experimental work. Moreover, in light of the different types of experiments, we also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each regarding threats to internal and external validity.

This chapter lays out the study’s research design. The design aims to enhance cycles of silence theory’s generalizability at two levels. At a macro level, the goal is to increase the potential that, contingent on local factors, the theory applies to as many of the communities facing criminal group violence as possible. It does so by drawing on logic derived from human social psychological dynamics, leveraging a wide range of existing datasets including a global survey of 109,000 citizens, and studying communities both the Global North (Baltimore, Maryland) and Global South (Lagos, Nigeria). At a micro level, the design combines cross-national data with original surveys as well as interviews and first- hand observations in Baltimore and Lagos. This multimethod approach improves the likelihood that the findings from the surveys and interviews in Baltimore and Lagos accurately reflect cooperation dynamics in the cities. Finally, the chapter provides definitions for key terms related to the study’s main actors – criminal groups, police, and citizens – and the main outcome of citizen cooperation with the police.

Social and behavioral researchers often draw on archival data – data collected by an entity other than the research team – to conduct scientific inquiry. Researchers typically seek to make claims about measured variables that extend beyond the measures themselves, such as interpreting a measure as representing an unobservable theoretical construct. Though researchers using archival data encounter many issues, this chapter focuses on two that have received less attention. The first concerns how researchers should justify the interpretations and uses they attach to archival measures. The second concerns how to justify generalizing findings. This chapter provides a framework to help researchers address these issues by drawing on contemporary validity theory in education and psychology as well as theory regarding causal mechanisms from philosophy and sociology. These concepts are illustrated using multiple examples from published studies.

This chapter provides an accessible introduction to experimental methods for social and behavioral scientists. We cover the process of experimentation from generating hypotheses through to statistical analyses. The chapter discusses classical issues (e.g., experimental design, selecting appropriate samples) but also more recent developments that have attracted the attention of experimental researchers. These issues include replication, preregistration, online samples, and power analyses. We also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of experimental methods. We conclude by noting that, for many research questions, experimental methods provide the strongest test of hypothesized causal relationships. Furthermore, well-designed experiments can elicit the same mental processes as in the real world; this typically makes them generalizable to new people and real-life situations.

In the final empirical chapter, I push beyond Senegal to look broadly across West Africa to assess the generalizability of my findings. Senegal is not the only West African state to display remarkable subnational variation in exposure to precolonial statehood nor to have recently undertaken decentralization reforms. I extend my coding of precolonial kingdoms to the subregion and match it to data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the Afrobarometer public opinion surveys to test the theory's generalizability. I find that areas of West Africa that were exposed to precolonial states have seen bigger gains in locally delivered public goods and that Afrobarometer respondents in these areas are more positive about their local governments and democratic practice than their counterparts in historically acephalous zones. While my theory is built around the specific legacies of precolonial statehood, the chapter's second half move beyond Africa to show the broader analytic leverage of the theory’s twin mechanisms of shared social identification and social network ties for Comparative Politics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of scope conditions for the argument.

Replication is an important tool used to test and develop scientific theories. Areas of biomedical and psychological research have experienced a replication crisis, in which many published findings failed to replicate. Following this, many other scientific disciplines have been interested in the robustness of their own findings. This chapter examines replication in primate cognitive studies. First, it discusses the frequency and success of replication studies in primate cognition and explores the challenges researchers face when designing and interpreting replication studies across the wide range of research designs used across the field. Next, it discusses the type of research that can probe the robustness of published findings, especially when replication studies are difficult to perform. The chapter concludes with a discussion of different roles that replication can have in primate cognition research.

It is likely that comparative psychologists, animal learning researchers, and behavior analysts agree with the general tenets of a behavior systems framework — that behavior is organized, that learning depends on a set of starting conditions that consist of the past and present state of an animal (including its evolutionary history), and that learning is influenced by the physical characteristics of the environments in which it is studied. Despite this agreement, a behavior systems framework is typically used to explain anomalous results rather than serve as the theoretical foundation for testing the generality of constructs and phenomena in the study of animal learning. In this chapter, we illustrate how a behavior systems framework, with its emphasis on situating animal learning and behavior in a functional context and measuring multiple responses, can be used in pursuit of that goal.

Chapter 5 delves into three additional cases of treaty interpretation by the human rights treaty bodies. The aim of the chapter is to probe the plausibility of the TLC concept across the human rights regime. I use insights and findings gathered from the drafting process of GC No. 15 to articulate a typology that distinguishes the treaty bodies by their likelihood to need external input when drafting GCs. Drawing on a combination of data – documents and existing scholarship, as well as interviews and personal observations – the case studies ultimately demonstrate the TLC concept to be applicable to drafting processes in other treaty bodies, even where their formation is less likely.

To what extent can an ethnographic sensibility enhance comparison? We argue that approaching comparison with an ethnographic sensibility – that is, being sensitive to how informants make sense of their worlds and incorporating meaning into our analyses – can strengthen comparative qualitative research. Adopting an ethnographic sensibility would enhance the quality of scholarly arguments by incorporating the processes through which actors ascribe meanings to their lived experiences and the political processes in which they are enmeshed. Because social science arguments often involve accounts of individual actors’ interests, ideas, or impressions, it is imperative to place such cognitive arguments in a broader cultural context. Adopting an ethnographic sensibility requires attention not only to that context but also to the political and social meanings which make that context intelligible. We elaborate these arguments through the lens of two comparative ethnographic works: a study of political mobilization in Bolivia and Mexico and a study of vigilantism in two South African townships.

In an interview with Lisa Wedeen, one of the contemporary comparative political scientists whose work most consistently speaks to both political science and interdisciplinary audiences, the editors ask Wedeen to reflect on the role that comparison has played in her work. Wedeen is the author of three groundbreaking monographs on seemingly single cases – two on Syria and one on Yemen. Yet, in the course of the interview, it becomes apparent how profoundly comparative Wedeen’s work is. She discusses her comparison of “exemplary events” in her field sites as a method through which to draw broad lessons about politics from apparent ephemera. She discusses the comparisons she makes between ethnographic insights and political theory to tack back and forth between empirical and theoretical material with the goal of developing new ways to think about politics. And she discusses the ways in which these comparative practices make her work not just an empirical practice but also a political practice – one that makes the work of a comparative political scientist not just a career but a vocation.

In the final empirical chapter, I push beyond Senegal to look broadly across West Africa to assess the generalizability of my findings. Senegal is not the only West African state to display remarkable subnational variation in exposure to precolonial statehood nor to have recently undertaken decentralization reforms. I extend my coding of precolonial kingdoms to the subregion and match it to data from the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the Afrobarometer public opinion surveys to test the theory's generalizability. I find that areas of West Africa that were exposed to precolonial states have seen bigger gains in locally delivered public goods and that Afrobarometer respondents in these areas are more positive about their local governments and democratic practice than their counterparts in historically acephalous zones. While my theory is built around the specific legacies of precolonial statehood, the chapter's second half move beyond Africa to show the broader analytic leverage of the theory’s twin mechanisms of shared social identification and social network ties for Comparative Politics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of scope conditions for the argument.