ABSTRACT
At the center of punctuated equilibrium is the study of agenda-setting. This chapter addresses four persistent methodological themes that thread through the development and current state of research in the field. These themes are using text-as-data in analyses of the discourse that underlies the connections between problems and solutions; making sure policy topics are comparable across time and space so that one may assess reliable time series of changes in the policy discourse; collaboration with machines in documenting the policy discourse; and attending to full distributions of change rather than average changes across time. The agenda-setting component of punctuated equilibrium requires measuring the discourse about policy topics across time. Research design aims to foster comparisons across time and spatial units like countries, institutions, organizations, or individuals. Comparison across time or space involves assessing some outcome relative to a baseline. Without a base of comparison, it is challenging to ascertain what we learn, theoretically and empirically, from a different outcome.
