The overarching goal of my research in methodology is to integrate quantitative methods more closely with international relations theories. Most of this work focuses on interactions and causal complexity, but I have also written on a range of other topics.

I argue that political scientists’ mean-centric mindset prevents us from recognizing the many ways in which changes in variance can both produce and be produced by interesting phenomena, from evolution to two-level games.

More generally, I argue that borrowing the epistemological orientation of the hard sciences has reduced international relations theorists’ tendency to think in terms of complexity and theoretical synthesis; argue (with Anne Sartori) for  stronger theorizing in statistical studies; offer some friendly caveats about methodological pluralism; and explore (with Yoshiko Herrera and others) the useful points of contact between discourse analysis and content analysis.