Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science
When committing to quantitative political science, a researcher has a wealth of methods to choose from. In this paper we compare the established method of analyzing roll call data using W-NOMINATE scores to a data-driven supervised machine learning method: Regression and Decision Trees (RDTs). To do...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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EDP Sciences
2017-01-01
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| Series: | ITM Web of Conferences |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1051/itmconf/20171400009 |
| _version_ | 1818446943036112896 |
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| author | Waldhauser Christoph Hochreiter Ronald |
| author_facet | Waldhauser Christoph Hochreiter Ronald |
| author_sort | Waldhauser Christoph |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | When committing to quantitative political science, a researcher has a wealth of methods to choose from. In this paper we compare the established method of analyzing roll call data using W-NOMINATE scores to a data-driven supervised machine learning method: Regression and Decision Trees (RDTs). To do this, we defined two scenarios, one pertaining to an analytical goal, the other being aimed at predicting unknown voting behavior. The suitability of both methods is measured in the dimensions of consistency, tolerance towards misspecification, prediction quality and overall variability. We find that RDTs are at least as suitable as the established method, at lower computational expense and are more forgiving with respect to misspecification. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T19:55:45Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-7c01e2c8ae1740f8bd7066f459d2b0bd |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2271-2097 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T19:55:45Z |
| publishDate | 2017-01-01 |
| publisher | EDP Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | ITM Web of Conferences |
| spelling | doaj.art-7c01e2c8ae1740f8bd7066f459d2b0bd2022-12-21T22:49:17ZengEDP SciencesITM Web of Conferences2271-20972017-01-01140000910.1051/itmconf/20171400009itmconf_apmod2017_00009Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political ScienceWaldhauser ChristophHochreiter RonaldWhen committing to quantitative political science, a researcher has a wealth of methods to choose from. In this paper we compare the established method of analyzing roll call data using W-NOMINATE scores to a data-driven supervised machine learning method: Regression and Decision Trees (RDTs). To do this, we defined two scenarios, one pertaining to an analytical goal, the other being aimed at predicting unknown voting behavior. The suitability of both methods is measured in the dimensions of consistency, tolerance towards misspecification, prediction quality and overall variability. We find that RDTs are at least as suitable as the established method, at lower computational expense and are more forgiving with respect to misspecification.https://doi.org/10.1051/itmconf/20171400009 |
| spellingShingle | Waldhauser Christoph Hochreiter Ronald Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science ITM Web of Conferences |
| title | Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science |
| title_full | Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science |
| title_fullStr | Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science |
| title_full_unstemmed | Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science |
| title_short | Shaking the trees: Abilities and Capabilities of Regression and Decision Trees for Political Science |
| title_sort | shaking the trees abilities and capabilities of regression and decision trees for political science |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1051/itmconf/20171400009 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT waldhauserchristoph shakingthetreesabilitiesandcapabilitiesofregressionanddecisiontreesforpoliticalscience AT hochreiterronald shakingthetreesabilitiesandcapabilitiesofregressionanddecisiontreesforpoliticalscience |