The newest version of the Annual Review of Political Science has been released as a large portion of the field attends APSA. As I am recovering from the IR poster session and presentation of my dissertation research (which involves data collection, but mostly fact based), I found the Evan S. Lieberman piece apt for night time reading. In "Bridging the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide: Best Practices in the Development of Historically Oriented Replication Databases", Evan argues:
The proliferation of historically oriented replication data has provided great opportunities for political scientists to develop and to test theories relevant to a range of macrohistorical phenomena. But what is the quality of such data? Are the codings or quantitative mappings of historical events, processes, and unit characteristics based on sufficiently solid foundations equivalent to those found in detailed case studies? This article evaluates a set of the most transparently disseminated replication datasets across a variety of research domains from the perspective of best-practice qualitative-historical research. It identifies a wide range of practices, highlighting both fundamental and innovative standards that might be adopted in future research.
