ABSTRACT
The impetus for statistical analysis in the Victorian age derived from the desire of scientists to understand, and thus control, the social world in which they lived. For many people, the term ‘scientific’ holds notions of legitimacy and authority. Hence, figures such as Marx and Engels employed statistics to develop ‘the laws of society’. By the 1840s, statistical societies existed in both Britain and America, although research using social statistics was largely concentrated in America until well into the twentieth century. In this chapter we shall: explore why any quantitative analysis you carry out should be rigorous; begin to introduce some of the terminology that political researchers often use; introduce different types of statistical analysis which may be used in political science; and conclude with two case studies – the first introducing the SPSS program, and the second introducing the contribution of the British Election Studies to political analysis.
