title: Working with Political Science Research Methods: Problem and Exercises
author:  Jason D. Mycoff 
description: <strong>Jason D. Mycoff</strong> is assistant professor of political science and international relations at the University of Delaware. He is the author (with Joseph A. Pika) of <em>Confrontation and Compromise: Presidential and Congressional Leadership, 2001-2006.</em>
zlib_text: For Tracey 
  
  CONTENTS 
  List of Figures and Tables 
  IX 
  Acknowledgments 
  XI 
  Introduction: Placing Politics in Time 
  CHAPTER ONE 
  Positive Feedback and Path Dependence 
  17 
  CHAPTER Two 
  Timing and Sequence 
  54 
  CHAPTER THREE 
  Long-Term Processes 
  79 
  CHAPTER FOUR 
  The Limits oflnstitutional Design 
  103 
   
  CHAPTER FIVE 
  Instih1tional Development 
  133 
  CONCLUSION 
  Temporal Context in Social Science Inquiry 
  167 
  Bibliography 
  179 
  Index 
  195 
   
  
  LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES 
  FIGURES 
  1.1. Payoffs with increasing returns to scale. 
  23 
  3.1. A basic threshold model. 
  87 
  3.2. Time horizons in different social science accounts. 
  92 
  3.3. A threshold model with a structural cause. 
  94 
  5 .1. Sources of resilience over time. 
  151 
  5 .2. Conversion costs, replacement costs, and institutional change. 
  156 
  TABLES 
  2.1. A Standard Cycling Problem 
  60 
  3.1. The Time Horizons of Different Causal Accounts 
  81 
  3.2. Categorizing Long-Term Processes 
  97 
  3.3. Time Horizons in Major Political Science Jou