Publications by Author: Herrera, Yoshiko Margaret

2009
Abdelal, Rawi E, Alastair Iain Johnston, Yoshiko Margaret Herrera, and Rose McDermott. 2009. Measuring Identity: A Guide for Social Scientists. Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract
The concept of identity has become increasingly prominent in the social sciences and humanities. Analysis of the development of social identities is an important focus of scholarly research, and scholars using social identities as the building blocks of social, political, and economic life have attempted to account for a number of discrete outcomes by treating identities as causal factors. The dominant implication of the vast literature on identity is that social identities are among the most important social facts of the world in which we live. Abdelal, Herrera, Johnston, and McDermott have brought together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider the conceptual and methodological challenges associated with treating identity as a variable, offer a synthetic theoretical framework, and demonstrate the possibilities offered by various methods of measurement. The book represents a collection of empirically-grounded theoretical discussions of a range of methodological techniques for the study of identities.
2007
Herrera, Yoshiko Margaret, and Devesh Kapur. 2007. “Improving Data Quality: Actors, Incentives and Capabilities”. Abstract

This paper examines the construction and use of datasets in political science. We focus on three interrelated questions: How might we assess data quality? What factors shape data quality? And how can these factors be addressed to improve data quality? We first outline some problems with existing dataset quality, including issues of validity, coverage and accuracy; and we discuss some ways of identifying problems as well as some consequences of data quality problems. The core of the paper addresses the second question by analyzing the incentives and capabilities facing four key actors in a data supply–chain: respondents; states (including bureaucracies and politicians); international organizations; and finally, academic scholars. We conclude by making some suggestions for improving the use and construction of datasets. We present evidence from a variety of contexts but especially from Africa, China, India and Russia.

1077_yh_improvingdata.pdf
2006
Abdelal, Rawi E, Alastair Iain Johnston, Yoshiko Margaret Herrera, and Rose McDermott. 2006. “Identity as a Variable”. Abstract
As scholarly interest in the concept of identity continues to grow, social identities are proving to be crucially important for understanding contemporary life. Despite—or perhaps because of—the sprawl of different treatments of identity in the social sciences, the concept has remained too analytically loose to be as useful a tool as the literature’s early promise had suggested. We propose to solve this longstanding problem by developing the analytical rigor and methodological imagination that will make identity a more useful variable for the social sciences. This article offers more precision by defining collective identity as a social category that varies along two dimensions—content and contestation. Content describes the meaning of a collective identity. The content of social identities may take the form of four non-mutually-exclusive types: constitutive norms; social purposes; relational comparisons with other social categories; and cognitive models. Contestation refers to the degree of agreement within a group over the content of the shared category. Our conceptualization thus enables collective identities to be compared according to the agreement and disagreement about their meanings by the members of the group. The final section of the article looks at the methodology of identity scholarship. Addressing the wide array of methodological options on identity—including discourse analysis, surveys, and content analysis, as well as promising newer methods like experiments, agent-based modeling, and cognitive mapping—we hope to provide the kind of brush clearing that will enable the field to move forward methodologically as well.
2005
Herrera, Yoshiko Margaret. 2005. Imagined Economies: The Sources of Russian Regionalism. Cambridge University Press. Publisher's Version Abstract

This book examines the economic bases of regional sovereignty movements in the Russian Federation from 1990-1993. The analysis is based on an original data set of Russian regional sovereignty movements and the author employs a variety of methods including quantitative statistical analysis, as well as qualitative case studies of Sverdlovsk and Samara oblasts using systematic content analysis of local newspaper articles. The central finding of the book is that variation in Russian regional activism is explained not by differences in economic conditions but by differences in the construction or imagination of economic interests; to put it in the language of other contemporary debates, economic advantage and disadvantage are as imagined as nations. In arguing that regional economic interests are inter-subjective, contingent, and institutionally specific, the book addresses a major question in political economy, namely the origin of economic interests. In addition, by engaging the nationalism literature, the book expands the constructivist paradigm to the development of economic interests.

Abdelal, Rawi E., Yoshiko Margaret Herrera, Alastair Iain Johnston, and Rose McDermott. 2005. “Identity as a Variable”. Abstract

As scholarly interest in the concept of identity continues to grow, social identities are proving to be crucially important for understanding contemporary life. Despite—or perhaps because of—the sprawl of different treatments of identity in the social sciences, the concept has remained too analytically loose to be as useful a tool as the literature?s early promise had suggested. Our paper proposes to solve this longstanding problem by developing the analytical rigor and methodological imagination that will make identity a reliable variable for the social sciences. Such work is important and, indeed, long overdue.

Social identity scholarship suffers from two sets of problems: conceptual issues and coordination gaps. The conceptual problems include the question of how to compare and differentiate types of identities, as well as the question of how to exploit theoretical advances in operationalizing identity as a variable. The other weakness in identity scholarship concerns what we term “coordination” problems. These include a lack of consistency and clarity in defining and measuring identities, a lack of cross–disciplinary and cross–sub–field coordination of identity research, and missed opportunities to take advantage of expanded methodological options. The analytic framework developed in this paper addresses these problems and offers a way forward.

Our paper offers more rigor and precision by defining collective identity as a social category that varies along two dimensions—content and contestation. Content describes the meaning of a collective identity. The content of social identities may take the form of four, non–mutuallyexclusive types: constitutive norms; social purposes; relational comparisons with other social categories; and cognitive models. Contestation refers to the degree of agreement within a group over the content of the shared category. Our conceptualization thus enables collective identities to be compared according to the agreement and disagreement about their meanings by the members of the group.

The final section of the paper looks at the methodology of identity scholarship. Addressing the wide array of methodological options on identity—including discourse analysis, surveys, and content analysis, as well as promising newer methods like experiments, agent–based modeling, and cognitive mapping—we hope to provide the kind of brush–clearing that will enable the field to move forward methodologically as well.

Our paper thus offers two ways forward for social scientific work on identity—by developing a more rigorous, more precisely defined analytic framework, and by providing a methodological roadmap for further integrated progress in identity scholarship.

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2004
Herrera, Yoshiko Margaret. 2004. “Symposium: Discourse and Content Analysis”.
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2001
Johnston, Alastair Iain, Rawi E Abdelal, and Yoshiko Margaret Herrera. 2001. “Treating Identity as a Variable”. Abstract
This paper outlines our initial thoughts on treating identity as a variable. It is part of a longer-term project to develop conceptualizations of identity and, more importantly, to develop technologies for observing identity and identity change that will have wide application in the social sciences. Heretofore the usual techniques for analyzing identity have consisted of non-replicable discourse analysis or lengthy individual interviews, at one extreme, or the use of large-N surveys at the other. Yet, much social science research relies on historical and contemporaneous texts. Specifically we hope to develop computer-aided quantitative and qualitative methods for analyzing a large number of textual sources in order to determine the content, intensity, and contestation of individual and collective identities at any particular point in time and space. These methods will allow researchers to use identity in a more rigorous and replicable way as an independent (and dependent) variable in a wide variety of research projects. They will also allow more rigorous testing among identity-based hypotheses—such as those drawing on social identity theory, role theory, or cognitive theories—along with other variables in explaining behavior. Researchers may also be able to develop early warning indicators that might be used to track growing intensity of out-group differentiation, a development which makes subjected groups more susceptible to identity-based mobilization for conflict. Perhaps most important, scholars will, using these methods, be able to observe more systematically the contestation and construction of identity over time.
Paper prepared for presentation at APSA, August 30–September 2, 2001, San Francisco.
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