Social scientists who use history as a laboratory for theory development use the work of historians to construct background narratives which can then be coded according to theoretically relevant categories. Yet, virtually no attention has been paid to how these historical monographs are to be chosen. On most periods and themes of interest available accounts differ, not only substantively but also with respect to the implicit theories and conceptual frameworks used to establish salience or produce commonsensical explanations. Unself-conscious use of historical monographs thus easily results in selection bias. Social scientists are bound to be more attracted to and convinced by accounts that accord with the expectations about events contained in the concepts they deploy and the theories they seek to test. Consideration of recent developments in historiographical theory supports the argument that responsible techniques for using historical sources are available, but they require understanding the extent to which patterns within historiography, rather than “History,” must be the direct focus of investigation and explanation. Such an approach has the added advantage of helping to generate historically based studies where observations or cases outnumber variables.
I nstitutional frameworks powerfully determine the goals, violence, and trajectories of identitarian movements-including secessionist movements. However, both small-N and large-N researchers disagree on the question of whether "power-sharing" arrangements, instead of repression, are more or less likely to mitigate threats of secessionist mobilizations by disaffected, regionally concentrated minority groups. The PS-I modeling platform was used to create a virtual country "Beita," containing within it a disaffected, partially controlled, regionally concentrated minority. Drawing on constructivist identity theory to determine behaviors by individual agents in Beita, the most popular theoretical positions on this issue were tested. Data were drawn from batches of hundreds of Beita histories produced under rigorous experimental conditions. The results lend support to sophisticated interpretations of the effects of repression vs. responsive or representative types of power-sharing. Although in the short run repression works to suppress ethnopolitical mobilization, it does not effectively reduce the threat of secession. Powersharing can be more effective, but it also tends to encourage larger minority identitarian movements.
This paper examines the consociational approach to the study of deeply divided societies and notes its weaknesses. It argues that the absence of a well-developed alternative “control” approach to the explanation of stability in deeply divided societies has resulted in the empirical overextension of consociational models. Control models, focusing on how superordinate groups manipulate subordinate groups rather than on the emergence and functioning of elite cartels, need to be developed—not only for the study of stable, deeply divided societies in which consociational models are inappropriate, but also as a means of eliminating certain theoretical problems that have been raised as criticisms of consociationalism. The paper includes a critical review of the literature that is available to guide study of control in deeply divided societies, and concludes with recommendations for the shape of an analytical framework within systematic comparison.
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