{"title":"Credibility revolution and the future of Russian studies","authors":"A. Libman","doi":"10.1080/1060586X.2022.2148446","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The credibility revolution transformed quantitative social sciences and was both a curse and a blessing for Russian studies. On the one hand, Russia turned out to be an attractive field for experimentalist research, which allowed Russian studies to gain unprecedented recognition in the broader disciplines. On the other hand, a focus on causal identification could have contributed to insufficient attention to potentially important topics relevant for understanding Russia and to some aspects of the Russian setting able to augment the general social science discourse. The war in Ukraine makes many causal identification designs used for studying Russia (with the exception of natural experiments) difficult or impossible to implement. It may make the return to other approaches and de-emphasizing causal identification necessary, at least to some extent. At the same time, the question remains of how the general social science disciplines will perceive such shift in focus.","PeriodicalId":46960,"journal":{"name":"Post-Soviet Affairs","volume":"39 1","pages":"60 - 69"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"10","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Post-Soviet Affairs","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2022.2148446","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 10
Abstract
ABSTRACT The credibility revolution transformed quantitative social sciences and was both a curse and a blessing for Russian studies. On the one hand, Russia turned out to be an attractive field for experimentalist research, which allowed Russian studies to gain unprecedented recognition in the broader disciplines. On the other hand, a focus on causal identification could have contributed to insufficient attention to potentially important topics relevant for understanding Russia and to some aspects of the Russian setting able to augment the general social science discourse. The war in Ukraine makes many causal identification designs used for studying Russia (with the exception of natural experiments) difficult or impossible to implement. It may make the return to other approaches and de-emphasizing causal identification necessary, at least to some extent. At the same time, the question remains of how the general social science disciplines will perceive such shift in focus.
期刊介绍:
Quarterly publication featuring the work of prominent Western scholars on the republics of the former Soviet Union providing exclusive, up-to-the-minute analyses of the state of the economy and society, progress toward economic reform, and linkages between political and social changes and economic developments. Published since 1985.