POLS 207 1st Edition Lecture 4 Outline of Last Lecture I Tucker on Politics II Why gov t is necessary III American Political Philosophy IV Advantages of Multiple Levels of Government V Scientific Study of Politics VI Natural Sciences and Social Sciences Outline of Current Lecture I The Comparative Study of American States II Using Graphs as Analysis Current Lecture I II The Comparative Study of American States a Are there differences between states Is Texas a typical state b Are there patterns of state differences Is there a pattern to Texas politics and polices c Are some patterns of evidence of cause and effect Are there explanations for some patterns Using Graphs as Analysis a Maps i Very good for comparing between the states 1 Population 2 Urbanization 3 Partisan affiliation 4 Income b Scatterplots i More information than simple maps ii What is Texas like compared to other states iii Empirical relationships in scatterplots and correlations 1 Minimum strength threshold 2 Direction of relationship a Inverse b Direct 3 Possible interpretations iv Good for comparing two different variables such as These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute 1 Percentage of state population with a Bachelor s Degree versus per capita income 2 Percentage metropolitan versus per capita income 3 Percentage metropolitan versus violent crime rate 4 Per capita income versus poverty rate 5 Death row inmates rate and execution 6 Infant mortality rate and life expectancy v The scaling on the chart can drastically change the way the data is interpreted vi Issues in Empirical Analyses 1 Measurement 2 Variable linkage 3 Is there a relationship vii Issues if there is an empirical relationship 1 Causal relationship a Does one variable cause an effect on the other 2 Spurious relationship a The variables do not have a direct causal relationship c Importance of measurement i Rates not raw numbers ii Rates have numerators and denominators 1 No rates of zero iii Also control for inflation over time iv Proper linkage of cause and effect d Motion graphs i Animated scatterplots ii Add information about time