TY - BOOK AU - Bedi,Sonu AU - Shapiro,Ian TI - Political Contingency: Studying the Unexpected, the Accidental, and the Unforeseen SN - 9780814740965 U1 - 320.01 22 PY - 2007///] CY - New York, NY : PB - New York University Press, KW - Causation KW - Political aspects KW - Imaginary histories KW - Political science KW - Methodology KW - World politics KW - 1989- KW - POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory KW - bisacsh KW - That KW - This KW - accidental KW - collection KW - contingency KW - essays KW - examines KW - fashion KW - original KW - phenomena KW - political KW - politics KW - significance KW - study KW - systematic KW - unexpected KW - unknowable N1 - restricted access N2 - History is replete with instances of what might, or might not, have been. By calling something contingent, at a minimum we are saying that it did not have to be as it is. Things could have been otherwise, and they would have been otherwise if something had happened differently. This collection of original essays examines the significance of contingency in the study of politics. That is, how to study unexpected, accidental, or unknowable political phenomena in a systematic fashion. Yitzhak Rabin is assassinated. Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans. How might history be different had these events not happened? How should social scientists interpret the significance of these events and can such unexpected outcomes be accounted for in a systematic way or by theoretical models? Can these unpredictable events be predicted for? Political Contingency addresses these and other related questions, providing theoretical and historical perspectives on the topic, empirical case studies, and the methodological challenges that the fact of contingency poses for the study of politics.Contributors: Sonu Bedi, Traci Burch, Jennifer L. Hochschild, Gregory A. Huber, Courtney Jung, David R. Mayhew, Philip Pettit, Andreas Schedler, Mark R. Shulman, Robert G. Shulman, Ian Shapiro, Susan Stokes, Elisabeth Jean Wood, and David Wootton UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780814708828 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9780814708828/original ER -