PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Spatial-Econometric Models for Political & Social Sciences

Until recently, empirical analyses of spatial interdependence in the social sciences remained largely confined to specialized areas of applied economics (e.g., environmental, urban/regional, and real-estate economics) and sociology (i.e., network analysis). However, social-scientific interest in and applications of spatial modeling have burgeoned lately, due partly to advances in theory that imply and methodology to address interdependence, partly to global substantive developments that have raised at least the perception of and attention to interconnectivity, and likely the actual degree and extent of it, at all levels, from micro/personal to macro/international, and partly to advances in technology for gathering and working with spatial data. This is a welcome development as many phenomena that social scientists study entail substantively important spatial interdependence, and, as previous grant-work showed, omitting such interdependence empirically biases inferences badly. Some of the most extensive classical and contemporary interest in spatial interdependence surrounds the diffusion of policy and/or institutions across national or sub-national governments. The study of policy-innovation diffusion among U.S. States has deep roots and much contemporary interest, with sustained attention between,1 and similar policy-learning mechanisms underlie some comparative studies of policy diffusion.2 Interest in institutional or regime diffusion is likewise longstanding and recently much reinvigorated.3 In comparative and international political economy perhaps especially, interdependence is often substantively large and central. Indeed, globalization and international economic integration, arguably today’s most-notable (and indisputably its mostnoted) political-economic phenomena, imply strategic and/or non-strategic interdependence of domestic politics, policymakers, and policies.4,5 The substantive range of notable interdependence effects extends well beyond these more-obvious contexts of intergovernmental diffusion, however, to span the political and other social sciences. Inside democratic legislatures, e.g., representatives’ votes depend on others’ votes or expected votes (e.g., Lacombe & Shaughnessy 2005); in electoral