ABSTRACT
No method has come to be so closely identied with modern science as experimental method. Nonetheless, until the second half of the 20th century experiments were rare in the social sciences. Experimental method rst came to prominence in psychology. More recently there has been a marked increase in the use of experimental methods in the other social sciences, most notably economics and political science. Rebecca B. Morton and Kenneth C. Williams, authors of a key text for experimental method in political science, outline the key reason for this turn to experimentation: “nonexperimental methods have failed to answer some signicant research questions, particularly causal ones” (Morton and Williams 2010, 260).
