Broadening the Political Methodologist's Toolkit: A Population Dynamics Model of Political Science Time Series Data

Political scientists, and social scientists more generally, rely on statistical modeling to understand complex systems and behaviors. However, as interest grows in not only how political actors change over time, but why they change, it is increasingly necessary to explore the use of dynamic models of time. In this dissertation, I introduce, describe, and implement an early version of a new estimation strategy of the Lotka-Volterra, or predator/prey, model that is theoretically and empirically accessible to political scientists.