Gidon Cohen

Propensity-Score Methods and the Lenin School

Although social scientists often use propensity-score methods to study databases that contain substantial amounts of bias and missing information, these techniques have not been applied in the historical literature. This article uses propensity-score matching to investigate the impact of Moscow training on the selection of leadership cadres within Britains Communist Party. These matching techniques can enable the quantitative analysis of a range of previously underutilized historical data.

Missing, Biased, and Unrepresentative: The Quantitative Analysis of Multisource Biographical Data

Abstract With the growth in interest in collective biography as a historical technique, many predominantly qualitative historians find themselves faced with large amounts of information. These data, collected from a variety of sources, are often highly irregular, making statistical analysis extremely problematic. Current practice is to ignore these problems and proceed with quantitative analysis suitable only for much more regular data. It is argued that a more satisfactory approach is to ascertain and directly confront the difficulties of analyzing such information. The three central problems are identified as missing data, systematic bias, and the lack of a representative sample. Using a practical example, the author explores the relationship between gender, the family, and political socialization within the Communist Party of Great Britain and shows how each of the issues can be dealt with in turn. The author first distinguishes truly missing data from “negative information,” which commonly appears to be missing in historical sources. He then stratifies the data to remove systematic biases relating to the issue at hand. Finally, he divides the sample into different populations, on the basis of the sources from which individuals are known, and compares the results obtained to examine whether his conclusions appear to depend on quirks of populations contained in the sources. These ideas open a new range of sources to quantitative analysis and raise the possibility of allowing new types of evidence to count in historical inquiry.

For a Life beyond Governing Persons: Alternative Reflections on Political Life History in Britain (and Beyond)

R.A.W. Rhodes is to be applauded for restating the case for life history methods within the field of political studies, and many of his arguments will be found unexceptionable by those actively working with such methods. Ironically, in his recent contribution to Political Studies Review Rhodes nevertheless eschews biographical and other forms of complexity in favour of essentialising comparison. A ‘British tradition of political biography’ is constructed according to inert criteria lacking explicit periodisation and excluding much current work. An overstated contrast is drawn between this tradition and an Australian one defined according to quite different disciplinary and chronological parameters. This article offers alternative reflections drawing on work on labour movement biographies developed through practices of transnational scholarly exchange and the rejection of methodological nationalism. Addressing the examples provided by Rhodes, and the use of life histories in his other recent work, we propose a life history method that goes beyond Governing Men.

Grassroots Conservatism in Post‐War Britain: A View from the Bottom Up

It is well known the membership of British Conservative Party in the 1950s dwarfed that of other parties, but despite this there has been very little examination of the partys grassroots in this crucial period. What literature there is comes predominantly from the top-down focus of national politics and revolves around four disputed images. Firstly, high-levels of membership are associated with commendable engagement with formal politics. Secondly, local associations are presented as inconsequential but autonomous. Thirdly, activists are seen as uninterested in ideology and focused on campaigning and social activity. Finally, associations are presented as dominated by women precisely because of their primarily social nature. This article examines the debates about these conventional images through an analysis of the rival Conservative factions in two Newcastle-upon-Tyne Associations, the location of probably the most divisive splits in twentieth-century Conservatism. It suggests that presentations of a ‘golden age’ of activism are unhelpful, that the conventional conception of autonomy obscures informal relationships, that attention to the ideological dimension is central to understanding and that the nature of female participation can only be understood by challenging the false dichotomy of social and political motivations. Taken together it argues that the study of grassroots Conservatism needs to grapple with the meanings, motivations and practices as seen from below as well as the consequences of such activity for those above. In this way the study of politics from the bottom-up can have significant consequences for our understanding of the Conservative Party.

Capture-Recapture Methods and Party Activism in Britain

Capture-recapture methods are of general interest because they can be applied to conventional historical sources to address otherwise intractable questions about the size and dynamics of historical populations. When employed to assess alternative explanations for the long-term trajectory of party activism in Britain—based on data drawn from the South Lewisham Labour Party—they suggest that the falling supply of individuals prepared to become politically involved is more important than the changing demand of parties for activists.