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Measurement of the core concepts used in the study of politics has a great impact
on our knowledge about politics. It affects the way we describe the world—and hence the
questions that seem important to study—and the causal propositions we consider to be
valid. Even more importantly, it affects the kind of advice political scientists offer on the
key political and public policy issues of the day. Yet it is remarkable how little attention
is given to the generation of data and the methodology of measurement. Indeed, it is fair
to say that the mainstream view in political science is that measurement is a necessary
task that should be quickly transcended or, if at all possible altogether skipped, so that
researchers’ energies can focus on a task seen as much more important: the testing of
causal hypotheses.
The failure to acknowledge the importance of data generation and the
methodology of measurement, and the propensity to take shortcuts, has severe costs. In a
nutshell, it is associated with illusionary gains in knowledge, which sooner or later are
questioned. Thus, it is time that political scientists become more suspicious of the
tendency toward premature knowledge claims that is so pervasive in the discipline and
put more emphasis on the measurement of key concepts as a foundation of knowledge,
that is, as a task that affects the possibility of providing sound descriptive and/or causal
analysis and, ultimately, of offering responsible advice.
Some hopeful signs of an appreciation of the important of measurement can be
gleaned in various quarters. Various important, ambitious research projects have tackled
the issue of data generation as an integral part of the research process.
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In addition, some
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Examples include Lijphart’s (1999) work on consensus democracy, which dedicates great attention,
chapter after chapter, to the measurement of the key concepts it uses; Przeworski et al.’s (2000) work on
democracy and development, which called for the construction of a new index on democracy and the
compilation of a data set of a range of political and economic concepts; Fearon and Laitin’s (2003) ongoing
Convention