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...experimental research conducted real-world settings.
The term 'experimental' in this context refers to studies in which units of observation are assigned at random to treatment and control conditions. This type of investigation stands in sharp contrast to observational research in which some natural process determines which individuals or groups receive a treatment. In a medical experiment on hormone replacement therapy, for example, women are randomly assigned to receive either the treatment or a placebo; the corresponding observational study simply compares women who, for whatever reason, receive hormone replacement therapy to those who do not, often with statistical controls designed to make the two groups equivalent.
The strength of experimental research derives from the use of randomization procedures, which ensure an unbiased comparison between treatment and control groups. 'Unbiased' is a term of art that statisticians use to refer to estimation procedures that have no systematic tendency to over- or underestimate the true effect. Any given randomized study might over- or underestimate the effects of, say, hormone replacement therapy, but on average these errors will cancel out. Observational research, by contrast, forces the investigator to impose strong and often untestable assumptions about the comparability of groups that do and do not receive a treatment. If healthier women happen to take hormone replacements, there will be a systematic tendency to overestimate the treatment's effects.
Although political science is predominantly an observational discipline, it has gradually drifted in the direction of experimental research. The 1950s saw some initial forays into randomized experiments on voter turnout. The 1960s and 1970s drew political scientists into the study of group bargaining and public goods dilemmas, usually...
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