2003	2004	2005	2006	2007
Theoretical and Methodological Foundations June 2-6, 2003 Instructors: Randall Calvert (Washington University in St. Louis) Andrew Martin (Washington University in St. Louis) The Operationalization of Spatial Models June 9-13, 2003 Instructor: Kevin Quinn (University of Washington) Special Guests: Simon Jackman (Stanford University) Keith Poole (University of Houston) Modeling Individual Agents and Institutions June 16-20, 2003 Instructor: Scott E. Page (University of Michigan) Special Guests: Tim Salmon (Florida State University)  Troy L. Tassier (University of Michigan) Issues in Testing Positive Theories of Judicial Decision Making June 23-27, 2003 Instructors: Lee Epstein (Washington University in St. Louis) Charles Cameron (Columbia University) Special Guests: John Ferejohn (NYU, Stanford) Pablo Spiller (University of California at Berkeley)	Theoretical and Methodological Foundations June 14-17, 2004  Instructors: Randall Calvert (Washington University in St. Louis) Andrew Martin (Washington University in St. Louis) Quantal Response Models June 18-19, 2004  Instructor: Thomas Palfrey (California Institute of Technology) Special Guests: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester) John Patty (Carnegie Mellon University) Jeffrey Lewis (UCLA) The Methodological Challenges of Coalition Theory June 21-23, 2004  Instructors: Itai Sened and Norman Schofield (both of Washington University in St. Louis) Special Guests: John Patty and Maggie Penn (both of Carnegie Mellon University) Experimental Tests of Theoretical Models June 24-29, 2004  Instructor: Rick Wilson (Russell Sage Foundation) Special Guests: Rebecca Morton (NYU) Gary Miller (Washington University in St. Louis) Issues in Testing Positive Theories of Legislative Politics June 30-July 2, 2004  Instructors: Keith Krehbiel (Stanford University) Steven S. Smith (Washington University in St. Louis) Special Guest: Nolan McCarty (Princeton University)	Theoretical and Methodological Foundations June 13-16, 2005 Instructors: Randall Calvert (Washington University in St. Louis) Andrew Martin (Washington University in St. Louis) Quantal Response Models June 17-18, 2005 Instructor: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester) Special Guest: Mark Fey (University of Rochester) Experimental Tests of Theoretical Models June 20-23, 2005 Instructor: Rick Wilson (Rice University) Special Guest: Gary Miller (Washington University in St. Louis)  The Operationalization of Spatial Models June 23-27, 2005 Instructor: Kevin Quinn (Harvard University) Special Guests: Simon Jackman (Stanford University) Keith Poole (University of California-San Diego) Issues in Testing Positive Theories of Judicial Politics June 28-July 1, 2005 Instructors: Lee Epstein (Washingon University in St. Louis) Charles Cameron (Columbia University) Jeffrey Segal (SUNY at Stonybrook)	Theoretical and Methodological Foundations June 12-15, 2006 Instructors: Randall Calvert (Washington University in St. Louis) Andrew Martin (Washington University in St. Louis) Ethan Bueno de Mesquita (Washington University in St. Louis) Random Utility Models and Quantal Response Equilibrium June 16-17, 2006 Instructor: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester) Special Guest: Mark Fey (University of Rochester) Experimental Tests of Theoretical Models June 19-22, 2006 Instructor: Rick Wilson (Rice University) Special Guest: Gary Miller (Washington University in St. Louis)  The Operationalization of Spatial Models June 23-26, 2006 Instructor: Kevin Quinn (Harvard University) Special Guests: Simon Jackman (Stanford University) Keith Poole (University of California-San Diego) Issues in Testing Positive Theories of Legislative Politics June 27-June 30, 2006 Instructors: Steven Smith (Washingon University in St. Louis Nolan McCarty (Princeton University)	Theoretical and Methodological Foundations June 11-15, 2007 Instructors: Randall Calvert (Washington University in St. Louis) Andrew Martin (Washington University in St. Louis) Ethan Bueno de Mesquita (Washington University in St. Louis) Random Utility Models and Strategic Choice June 18-19, 2007 Instructor: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester) Special Guest: Mark Fey (University of Rochester) Experimental Applications June 20-23, 2007 Instructor: Rick Wilson (Rice University) Operationalizing the Spatial Model June 25-27, 2007 Instructor: Simon Jackman (Stanford University) Judicial Applications June 27-June 29, 2007 Instructor: James Spriggs (Washingon University in St. Louis) OR International Relations Applications June 27-June 29, 2007 Instructor: Robert Walker (Washingon University in St. Louis) 2007 SEMINAR DESCRIPTIONS
Past Seminar Descriptions Theoretical and Methodological Foundations June 2-6, 2003 June 14-17, 2004 Instructors: Randall Calvert (Washington University in St. Louis) Andrew Martin (Washington University in St. Louis) Although most participants in the Summer Institute know the basics of rational choice theory and statistical analysis, it is necessary to cover some basic techniques from a standpoint that will prepare participants for the advanced seminars. Commentators on rational choice theory have asserted that such theories generate only point predictions, unsuitable for testing. The Foundations seminar presents important varieties of rational choice models, specifically spatial voting models and non-cooperative game theory, in a form that emphasizes the techniques by which these models can be used to generate testable implications through comparative statics analysis and the analysis of population variations in the parameter values. A key component of the Foundations seminar is to provide tools with which students can develop their own statistical models to test predictions derived from formal theories. Basic courses in statistical methods oftentimes give scant coverage to the following techniques fundamental to the Summer Institute's advanced seminars: maximum likelihood estimation, Bayesian inference, model specification for comparative statics predictions, model comparison, and simulation. Finally, software to be used in the subsequent advanced seminars is introduced.  Course Syllabus and Other Materials
The Operationalization of Spatial Models  June 9-13, 2003 Instructor: Kevin Quinn (University of Washington)  Special Guests: Simon Jackman (Stanford University)  Keith Poole (University of Houston)  For over fifty years, the spatial model of voting has informed a great deal of rational choice scholarship on voting and decision making in legislative and judicial institutions throughout the world. The literature suggests that issue voting in a well-defined issue space (of typically low dimensionality) structures a good deal of voting by the mass public. Similarly, a great deal about what is known about voting in parliaments relies on the logic of the spatial model. The spatial model (or, perhaps more appropriately, spatial models) of voting by the mass public and voting by elites in institutional settings has spawned a tremendous amount of theoretical development. In general, we know that voting in multi-dimensional issue spaces is inherently unstable (McKelvey 1979, Schofield 1977), unless choice is constrained in some fashion, such as structure induced equilibrium (Shepsle 1979). While the literature is rich with theoretical results, there is a paucity of empirical research that uses the spatial model. How does one take voting data from a legislative body and estimate ideal points? How does one take a battery of issue questions on a survey and summarize the issue space? Given ideal points in such as space, how does one use them in other models? How does one go about computing equilibrium behavior from spatial models? In this course, cutting-edge methodological tools are taught that will allow students to (a) operationalize the spatial model in their own research; (b) use the spatial model in other statistical models of behavior; and (c) use computational approaches to compute equilibrium predictions of various sorts of formal models.  Seminar outline:   estimation of ideal points from a set of roll call votes in a legislative body. Students will learn how to estimate item response models from these data, and interpret the findings. Multi-dimensional and dynamic item response models will be covered. estimation of an issue space and ideal points from a battery of survey questions. Students will learn how to estimate linear factor models from these data, and interpret the findings. Multi-dimensional and dynamic factor models will be covered. specification of models of choice that incorporate spatial considerations. Often one wants to take the predictions from a spatial model to model choice. Logit, probit, multinomial logit, and multinomial probit models that incorporate spatial covariates will be discussed. Estimating joint measurement and structural models using MCMC will be covered. computation of equilibrium behavior from a spatial model. Students will be introduced to computer algorithms geared to computing equilibrium behavior from non-cooperative games, and quantities such as the core and the heart from cooperative theory. Readings will be drawn from published research and textbooks from political science, economics, and statistics. Example datasets will be constructed for each module, and students will use software written by the instructor to estimate the models in R/S-Plus or C++. By the end of the course, each student will be prepared to build appropriate measurement models, use the findings from those models in auxiliary research, and compute quantities of interest from formal theory derived from these models.
Modeling Individual Agents and Institutions  June 16-20, 2003 Instructor: Scott E. Page (University of Michigan) Special Guests: Tim Salmon (Florida State University)  Troy L. Tassier (University of Michigan) In this week, we will undertake a formal study of institutional performance with a focus on how individual behavior and information aggregates through institutions. Our emphasis will be on new theoretical developments and modeling techniques from economics, political science, and complex systems, and on how to test their empirical implications.  We will begin with a formal presentation of the theory of mechanism design and its interpretation within political science. We will see that most of the formal models in political science are mechanisms in the classic sense.  We will then analyze the theoretical and empirical implications of two core assumptions of mechanism design theory: (i) the idea that people and organizations optimize relative to their information and (ii) the assumption that institutions can be considered in isolation and have no impact on agent level characteristics. The goal for the week is for participants to develop a deeper theoretical understanding of the interplay and feedbacks between institutions and individual behavior and to learn how to test for those interactions empirically.  The week will be divided into two parts. In the first part of the week we will focus on three theoretical approaches to modeling individual behavior. (1) The first approach emphasizes learning and will be taught by Tim Salmon, an economist who has done some exceptional work on the empirical testing of a variety of learning models. (2) A second approach, one implicitly advocated by the likes of Ostrom, Bowles, Axelrod, and Chong, embraces the behavioral diversity evident in experiments and in empirical studies. This diversity far exceeds that predicted by the stark learning models. This diversity is often loosely attributed to culture. We will study formal models by Itzhak Gilboa and David Schmeidler and by Lu Hong and Scott Page that provide theoretical underpinnings for this diverse behavior. We will then discuss some experimental research by Bowles, Camerer, and others that demonstrates cultural diversity. (3) A third approach uses network models of information to crafting a more accurate behavioral model. Troy Tassier, from the University of Michigan, will provide an overview of the network literature and then show some empirical implications.  Given this more elaborate model of actors, we will then link these richer models of behavior to the analysis of institutions. For example, if we cast an institution as a game form, we can then ask how quickly people learn in that game. This introduces another way to compare institutions theoretically and empirically. In addition to comparing their equilibrium sets, we can see which institutions pave the smoothest path to equilibrium.  We will close with a more holistic perspective on institutions than is provided by the mechanism design approach. Doug North, Elinor Ostrom and others have long recognized that institutions do not exist in a vacuum. Nations consist of multiple economic, political, and social institutions all of which contribute to their citizen's informational and cognitive environments. We will consider recent work by Jenna Bednar and Scott Page on what they call games theory. Games theory provides a theoretical framework within which to analyze multiple institutions simultaneously. We will explore how to use this theoretical model to capture the empirical presence of increasing returns or institutional path dependence.  Seminar Outline  1. Mechanism and Institutional Design: The Basics      - realization vs implementation of equilibria      - the Mount-Reiter Diagram      - the Revelation Principle  2. Learning Models      - fictitious play      - Roth-Erev      - Camerer-Ho      - quantal response      - empirical testing      - simulation of models  3. Diversity Models      - toolboxes vs. thermometers      - Chong      - Gilboa Schmeidler      - Hong and Page  4. Network Models      - information networks in voting      - strength of weak ties      - empirical testing  5. Institutions and Learning      - basic framework      - application to political institutions  6. Games Theory      - Bednar-Page      - cultural behavior      - path dependence      - increasing Returns      - institutional Externalities
Issues in Testing Positive Theories of Judicial Politics June 28-July 1, 2005 Instructors: Lee Epstein (Washington University in St. Louis) Charles Cameron (Princeton University) Jeffrey Segal (SUNY at Stonybrook) After decades of invoking variants of the social-psychological paradigm, political scientists who study courts are now gravitating toward strategic analysis. Nonetheless, and however promising the future is for injection of rational choice into the study of judicial politics, the move toward the "strategization" of the field is not without its share of debates. Already one has developed over the question of "how to do strategic work." On one side are analysts who are translating their strategic intuitions into variables that they include in their statistical models of judicial behavior. Mostly these are scholars who were not trained in formal theory but, instead, were schooled in the judicial politics literature and trained in the social-psychological tradition. On the other side are those scholars, largely trained in formal theory but not in judicial politics, who take the position, in its strongest form, that rational choice work must embody formal equilibrium analysis; rational choice work, in other words, is not rational choice work unless the analyst has written down and solved a formal model.  Research falling into the first camp can best be interpreted as a transitional bridge between traditional behavioral research and strategic analysis. Research along these lines has had mixed success. To be sure, the studies have succeeded in developing systematic statistical tests of the effects of strategic decision making. Unfortunately, these sorts of studies develop their hypotheses through loose intuitions and not through formal equilibrium analysis. As formal theorists argue, if scholars want to explain a particular line of decisions or a substantive body of law as the equilibrium outcome of the interdependent choices of the judges and other actors, they must demonstrate why the choices are in equilibrium. A formal model is an essential feature of such a demonstration.  Still, it is undeniable that the models of formal theorists sometimes bear little resemblance to empirical reality, reflecting a lack of deep training in the politics of judging. Moreover, the implications of their models more than occasionally remain untested. In an area replete with analysts and not just political scientists, but legal academics and business school professors who have studied judicial politics for decades, lack of basic knowledge about the judicial process is not just a minor inconvenience but a severe problem in gaining acceptance.  How do we move beyond this either/or debate? One obvious answer is to train people substantively and technically so that they can develop realistic formal models and conduct the requisite empirical assessments. That, at least, is the purpose of this course.  Seminar outline:    the domain of the field, major strands in formal judicial politics, and sources of data formal theory meets data: a. appointments to the federal courts  b. the judicial hierarchy  c. the separation of powers system  The instructors for the course are Charles Cameron, Lee Epstein, and Jeffrey A. Segal. Professor Cameron is professor of political science at Princeton University. He specializes in applied formal theory and political institutions. Professor Cameron's work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics, as well as scholarly journals in economics and law. He is the author of Veto Bargaining: Presidents and the Politics of Negative Power (Cambridge University Press, 1998). Professor Epstein is the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Professor of Law at Washington University, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. A recipient of ten grants from the National Science Foundation for her work on judicial politics, Epstein has also authored, co-authored, or edited over seventy articles and essays, as well as twelve books, including the Constitutional Law for a Changing America Series(in its 5th edition; winner of the Teaching and Mentoring Award from the Law and the Courts Secion of the American Political Science Association), The Supreme Court Compendium(now in its 3rd edition); winner of a Special Recognition Honor from the Law and Courts Section of the American Political Science Association and an Outstanding Academic Book Award from Choice, and The Choices Justices Make (recipient of the Pritchett award for the Best Book on Law and Courts). Current projects include Strategic Defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court, which examines the circumstances leading lower courts to comply with/defy higher courts; Do We Still Need an ERA?, which analyzes constitutional sex discrimination litigation in the 50 states to make an inference about the need for a federal Equal Rights Amendment; and Importing Law, which considers how courts here and abroad make use of foreign legal materials. Professor Segal is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Stony Brook University. His articles include "Predicting Supreme Court Cases Probabilistically: The Search and Seizure Cases, 1962-1981" (American Political Science Review, 1984), which won the Wadsworth Award (2002), for book or article, ten years or older, that has had a lasting influence on the field of law and courts. His books include Majority Rule or Minority Will: Adherence to Precedent on the U.S. Supreme Court(Cambridge University Press, 1999, with Harold Spaeth), which won the C. Herman Pritchett Award of the American Political Science Association for best book in law and judician politics. His most recent book, again with Spaeth, is The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited(Cambridge University Press, 2002). He is now working with the papers of Justice Harry Blackmun for a book (with Lee Epstein and Harold Spaeth) on agenda setting on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Issues in Testing Positive Theories of Legislative Politics  June 30-July 2, 2004 Instructors: Keith Krehbiel (Stanford University)  Steven S. Smith (Washington University in St. Louis)  Special Guest: Nolan McCarty (Princeton University)  In recent years, theoretical advances concerning legislative institutions, legislative parties, and the individual behavior of legislators have generated many methodological challenges. A central concern of the field is the development of appropriate tests of theories about the choice of formal and informal institutions. Closely related are theories of individual behavior in a strategic context. The seminar is designed to give intensive consideration of five (necessarily related) problems at the intersection of theory and method:    The instructors for the seminar are Keith Krehbiel and Steven S. Smith. Professor Krehbiel is the Edward B. Rust Professor of Political Science in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He is the author of Pivotal Politics (1998), Information and Legislative Organization (1991), and numerous articles on the theory and method of legislative politics. Professor Smith is the Kate M. Gregg Professor of Social Sciences at Washington University. He is the author or co-author of Call to Order: Floor Politics in the House and Senate (1989), Committees in Congress (1984), Managing Uncertainty in the U.S. House of Representatives (1988), Politics or Principle: Filibustering in the Senate (1997), The Politics of Institutional Choice (2001), and numerous articles on congressional politics. Both have won awards for their teaching and both have been principal investigators for NSF grants.  Course Syllabus. Links to selected readings (J-Stor required):  Groseclose and Snyder. "Vote-Buying, Supermajorities, and Flooded Coalitions."  Groseclose and Snyder. "Estimating Party Influence in Roll Call Voting."  Krehbiel. "Party Discipline and Measures of Partisanship."  Krehbiel. "The Coefficient of Party Influence."  Groseclose and Snyder."The Coefficient of Party Influence: Comment on Krehbiel."  Krehbiel. "Asymmetry in Party Influence: Reply."  Cox and McCubbins. "Setting the Agenda." Chs. 3 & 5  Riker "Towards a Science.."
Quantal Response Models June 18-19, 2004 Instructor: Thomas Palfrey (California Institute of Technology)  Special Guests: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester), John Patty (Carnegie Mellon University) and Jeffrey Lewis (ULCA)  June 17-18,2005 Instructor: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester)  Special Guest: Mark Fey (University of Rochester)  June 16-17,2006 (2006 title is Random Utility Models and Quantal Response Equilibrium) Instructor: Curt Signorino (University of Rochester)  Special Guest: Mark Fey (University of Rochester)  Much of the political science literature suffers from a disconnect between theory and the statistical techniques used to test or analyze theory. During this module, we will examine methods for explicity linking theory and statistical analysis, especially in a strategic context. The material will draw heavily from the literatures on random utility models (RUM), quantal response equilibrium (QRE), and regression analysis with strategic models.  Course Syllabus Curt Signorino Lectures
The Methodological Challenges of Coalition Theory  June 21-23, 2004 Instructors: Itai Sened and Norman Schofield (both of Washington University in St. Louis)  Special Guest: Eric Brown (University of Wisconsin-Madison)  Theoretical models of legislative and coalition politics in parliamentary systems represent some of the most important developments in political science during the past two decades. The main advances on the theoretical front are more complex models that place the formation and break-up of coalitions within the context of electoral and legislative politics. These models also include multiple levels of bargaining among multiple players, and multi-stage, sequential-non-cooperative and cooperative games. Equally important is the progress in Bayesian inference, Poisson, and event count models. New econometric tools allow us to estimate, most precisely, ideal points of voters, individual legislators, party positions, and government policies. New computational techniques allow the simulation of complex theoretical models and derivation of equilibria of legislative and coalition politics games that have generall defied comprehensive analytical exploration due to their complexity.  The seminar will address both theoretical and empirical issues, as follows:  Theoretical Models  1. Introduction: Coalition Theory from Riker (1962) to Laver and Shepsle (1996)  2. The spatial model of electoral, legislative, and coalition politics.  3. Cooperative and Non-cooperative models of Coalition Politics.  4. Introducing legislative politics, voters, and special interests to the study of coalition politics  5. Simulation-based and dynamic models of coalition formation and break-ups.  Empirical Tools  1. Survey research  2. Content analysis  3. Estimating Ideal Points  4. Simluations Techniques  5. Dynamic Modeling  Implementation  1. Data: Researchers at Washington University have accumulated a large data set on legislative and coalition politics. Participants will gain access to this data set to put their newly acquired knowledge to the test.  2. Experiments: A carefully designed set of experiments will be used to help participants gain a better understanding of legislative and coalition politics by playing the games they have learned and compare the results of these experiments with theoretical and empirical results in the literature.  Course Materials:  Sened Slides Course Readings:  Multiparty Parliaments: Parties, Elections, Coalitions and Legislative Politics in Parliamentary Democracies  Norman Schofield and Itai Sened  Preface Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Appendix to Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven References Conclusion Schofield and Sened. "Modeling the Interaction of Party, Activists, and Voters: Why in the Political Centre so Empty?"  Schofield and Sened. "Multiparty Competition in Israel: 1988-1996."  Quinn, Martin, and Whitford. "Voter Choice in Multi-Party Democracies: A Test of Competing Theories and Models." Austen-Smith and Banks. "Social Choice Theory, Game Theory, and Positive Political Theory."  Dutta, Jackson, and Le Breton. "Equilibrium Agenda Formation."  Wuffle et al. "Finagle's Law and the Finalge Point, A New Solution for Two-Candidate Competition in Spatial Voting Games without a Core."  Ben-Yashar and Paroush. "A Nonasymptotic Condorcet Jury Theorem."  Schofield. "A Valence Model of  Political Competition in Britain: 1992-1997."  Penn. "A Distributive N-Amendment Game with Endogenous Agenda Formation." Penn. "A Model of Far-Sighted Voting."  Patty and Penn. "The Legislative Calendar."  McKelvey and Patty. "A Theory of Voting in Large Elections."
Experimental Tests of Theoretical Models  June 19-22, 2006 June 24-28, 2004 Instructor: Rick Wilson (Russell Sage Foundation)  Special Guests: Rebecca Morton (NYU)  Gary Miller (Washington University in St. Louis);  As in other sciences, the development of rigorous, deductive theory leads to hypotheses that demand testing. Laboratory experiments are intended to provide the most controlled tests of these hypotheses. In political science, laboratory experiments play a critical role since so many of the theories presume knowledge of preferences which are typically unknown in the field. Political science experiments typically guarantee subjects differing financial rewards for different outcomes, thereby inducing known preference rankings over those outcomes. Typically, different treatments will be identical except for one key theoretical variable, which may be the institutional voting rule, information conditions, communication possibilities, or preferences. With random assignment of subjects to treatments, differences across treatments may be confidently attributed to the treatment variable.  Topics covered will include voting experiments, public good experiments, tests of non-cooperative bargaining theory, experiments on information, and recent innovations in political science experimentation. We will discuss links between theory and experiment, experimental design, the role of pilot experiments, experimental technique, data gathering and data analysis. Students will have a chance to participate both as subjects and as observers, and will be asked to design an experiment. Readings will be reports of experiments in political science and economics journals.  Professor Rick Wilson of Rice University is the instructor of this course. In addition to historical research on institutions of American politics, Rick has done some of the most innovative and powerful experiments in the discipline. He has designed and administered experiments on strategic voting, agendas and agenda costs, and repeated prisoners' dilemma games, coordination games, and ultimatum games, among others. He has received numerous National Science Foundation grants in support of his experimental research.  Course Syllabus Course Materials:  Morton Slides Experimental Results Links to selected readings:  Fiorina and Plott. 1978. "Committee Decisions under Majority Rule: An Experimental Study."  Moir. 1999. "A  Monte Carlo Analysis of the Fisher Randomization Technique: Reviving Randomization for Experimental Economist."  Henrich et al. 2001. "In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies."  Eckel and Grossman. 1998. "Are Women Less Selfish Than Men?: Evidence from Dictator Experiments."  Bianco, Lynch, and Miller. "'A Theory Waiting to be Discovered': A Reanalysis of Canonical Experiments on Majority Rule Decision Making."  Bianco, Jeliazkov, and Sened. "The Uncovered Set and the Limits of the Legislative Action."