Quantile Modeling for Political Research (Elements in Quantitative and Computational Methods for the Social Sciences)

Quantile models are widely used across the natural and social sciences to analyze heterogeneous phenomena that conventional mean-based approaches often obscure. Yet, despite their growing importance in many disciplines, their adoption in political science has remained comparatively limited, in part because the field still lacks an accessible introduction tailored to its substantive questions and empirical practices. This Element addresses that gap by showing how quantile models can expand the methodological repertoire of political science and deepen our understanding of political phenomena. Combining methodological innovation with practical guidance, this Element introduces quantile models for both continuous and discrete response variables and illustrates their use with real-world political examples. All empirical applications are accompanied by publicly available data, code, and software, making the Element a useful resource for both teaching and research. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.