Micro-Macro Links in the Social Sciences CCNER*WZB Data Linkages in Cross National Electoral Research Berlin, 20 June, 2012

Transcription

1 Micro-Macro Links in the Social Sciences CCNER*WZB Data Linkages in Cross National Electoral Research Berlin, 20 June, 2012 Bernhard Weßels Research Unit Democracy

2 Outline of the presentation 1. Remarks on the History of Micro-Macro, and Related Concepts 2. Levels of Analysis 3. Why Problems of Inquiry 4. Moving up: Micro to Macro 5. Moving down: Macro to Micro 6. Macro-Micro Design s Contribution to Comparative Analysis 2

3 1. Remarks on the History of Micro- Macro and Related Concepts Micro-Macro, Level, Nestedness, Analytic Reduction today seem to be self-evident concepts. They are not: Result of struggle for understanding and explanation. First systematic use of micro and macro, and levels of analysis : Stein Rokkan 1962: "The Comparative Study of Political Participation: Notes Toward a Perspective on Current Research (Differences in voter turnout national/local elections) Probably first systematic use of Nestedness : Hans Eulau, mid-1960 s, regarding legislative behavior Probably first use of "Analytic Reduction : Donald Stokes (1966) 3

4 2. Levels of Analysis Rokkan 1962: (1) micro-micro: studying the relationships between individual characteristics, roles, cognitions, or motivations and political dispositions and decisions; (2) macro-micro: studying "the effects of variations and changes in structural contexts on the rates of given political decisions and on the strength and direction of micro-micro relationships" ; (3) micro-macro: studying the "effects" of citizen attitudes and decisions on party policies, strategies, and tactics, and "on the operation of the established systems of structural restraints on decision-making"; (4) macro-macro: studying "the functions of given structural restraints in the maintenance, legitimation, and stabilization of the over-all political system" (1962: 57). 4

5 3. Why Problems of Inquiry Levels of Analysis, Levels of Inference, and Fallacies Individual (person level) conclusions from individual level data: may involve atomistic fallacy Group/Aggregate level conclusions from aggregate data: may involve (lower level) omitted variable bias Individual (person level) conclusions from aggregate level data: may involve ecologic fallacy Group/Aggregate level conclusion from individual level data: may involve reductionist fallacy (the whole is more than its parts, Durkheim) 5

6 PA

7 Description or explanation? As long as we stay with descriptions it might be sufficient to compare country frequencies and means As soon as we want to explain, the question of determination, intervention, and control is on the table Cross-national models of explanation needs to model micro-level relationships under varying constrains of macro conditions or varying micro level relationships producing/constraining higher level outcomes 7

8 Assumptions which we cannot make in truly cross-national research That levels of a variable are the same across countries That relationships between variables are the same across countries Implication: At least, we have to control for macro-variations in order not to neglect differences in levels and relationships across countries, regions, elections etc. 8

9 4. Moving up: Micro to Macro Donald Stokes (1966) "Analytic Reduction in the Study of Institutions. Institutional analysis must exploit reduction to the level of the individual actors involved. It is called for "in any field of inquiry where phenomena at a macroscopic level can be comprehended in terms of phenomena at some microscopic level. Voting studies must rise up "out of a total immersion in the psychology and sociology of individual choice Contribution of electoral behaviour analysis to the study of political structures/institutions 9

10 Principles: System level phenomena are explained by the activities of the parts. Mechanisms, accordingly, exist in a "nested hierarchy": The activity of an entity at a given level may be looked at (1) in isolation, (2) constitutively, i.e. by identifying the lower level mechanisms that generate its activity, or (3) contextually, by showing how it fits into the organization of a higher-level mechanism (Craver 2001, 65-71). Philosophy of science: "for a higher-level law to be mechanically explicable, it must be realized by some lower-level mechanism" (Glennan 1996, 62). Research Reality? Modernization theory and persistence of democracy (Lipset 1959, "Some Social Requisites of Democracy )..Perhaps the most widespread generalization linking political system to other aspects of society has been that democracy is related to the state of economic development (75). Explication of mechanisms even if data are not available! 10

11 Only some three decades later: specification by Welzel & Inglehart (2003) We specify this syndrome as human development, arguing that its three components have a common focus on broadening human choice. Socioeconomic development gives people the objective means of choice by increasing individual resources; rising emancipative values strengthen people's subjective orientation towards choice; and democratization provides legal guarantees of choice by institutionalizing freedom rights. Analysis of data from the World Values Surveys demonstrates that the linkage between individual resources, emancipative values and freedom rights is universal in its presence across nations, regions and cultural zones; that this human development syndrome is shaped by a causal effect of individual resources and emancipative values on freedom rights; and that this effect operates through its impact on elite integrity, as the factor which makes freedom rights effective. 11

12 5. Moving down: Macro to Micro Rokkan: Ambivalence concerning causality regarding: a) Macro-Macro b) Micro-Micro c) Macro-Micro Quite confident concerning demonstration of causality by d) Macro-Micro-Micro Przeworski/Teune: Regard only d) as true comparative analysis 12

13 13

14 From Ecological Fallacy to Multi-level: An Example 14

15 15

16 Considerations: Who voted Nazis? Being unemployed was not the reason for voting Nazi. Alternative Hypothesis: Potential looser/threat The middle classes felt the more at risk the higher the unemployment rate. Their probability of voting Nazi was positively related to unemployment rates. Multi-level problem/cross-level interaction: Voters nested in constituencies, constituency context matters for individuallevel relationship: 16

17 Although closer to measuring causality, it is still only testing for implications of a theory/hypothesis The psychological process of threat is (plausibly) assumed, not measured Role of theory assuming reasonable mechanisms 17

18 6. Macro-Micro Design s Contribution to Comparative Analysis Typical general questions at the heart of political science and sociology Political science: Do institutions matter? Sociology: Does context matter? 18

19 Data richness will not solve our problems but it helps Theory is and will be the most important tool to come up with proper models The problem of only testing implications of theories/hypotheses will neither be solved by technique nor by data Thus: Good theories about the impact of institutions on attitudes and behavior needed (incentive structure/constraints) Good theories needed how lower levels impact higher levels (power, conflict theories) We are in quantitative terms (number of analyses) and qualitative terms (good macro-micro theories) still at the beginning. 19

20 Thank you very much for your attention 20

21 Summary 21