ABSTRACT
The primary emphasis of social science research, including public administration, is to evaluate relationships between variables in search of causation. As researchers, we want to know how variables are related to each other; that is, we want to know which variable is influencing (causing) the other. For instance, public administrators may want to know if campaign spending is linked to people splitting their ballots between Republicans and Democrats when voting, or if the percentage of African Americans affects the amount of money spent by cities on contracts for businesses run by minorities, or if a focus on results is related to managerial authority. To be sure, establishing that one variable is having a causal effect on another variable requires meeting a rigorous set of standards. Specifically, this includes showing that there is a strong theoretical reason for believing that one variable is the cause of the other, that the relationship between the two variables is not the result of another variable that is related to both variables, that one of the variables precedes the other in time, and that the two variables covary; i.e., move or change in relation to each other (Meier et al., 2006).
