Abstract: Historical Politics (HP) has been proposed and promoted as a promising avenue for the development of Chinas autonomous body of knowledge and system of disciplines in political science. In addition to adopting the historical perspective for enriching related theoretical discussions in political science, HP has also raised new requirements and challenges for the existing mainstream empirical research methods in a methodological aspect. This paper systematically reviews key assumptions of the existing mainstream frameworks for causal inference and quantitative modeling, as well as their respective strategies of dealing with temporal dynamics. It further highlights their major deficiencies in effectively incorporating temporal dynamics. Given HPs equal emphasis on both temporal and spatial dynamics, this paper argues that the latest methodological discussions on eventful causality, dynamic modeling technique, as well as dynamic Bayesian modeling, have all contributed to improving empirical research in HP and provided more appropriate methodological tools. In order to effectively promote HP, researchers should move beyond the existing mainstream empirical research methods, take the issue of temporality more seriously, and systematically and dynamically incorporate the analysis of conditions and causality in the temporal dimension in modeling and data analysis. By improving the matching of empirical research methods to theoretical frameworks, we can truly expand political science research and refine political science theories from a historical perspective.

Key words: Historical Politics, temporal scope condition, eventful causality, dynamic modeling

摘要： 历史政治学的提出和发展为中国发展自主的政治学知识和学科体系指出了一条前景可期的道路。在结合历史视野及路径拓展和深化政治学相关理论研究的同时，历史政治学也从方法学层面对既有主流实证研究方法提出了新的要求和挑战。本文在方法学层面系统回顾了现有主流因果分析框架、计量模型的核心前提假设，及其对时间维度上的动态变迁及相关演化机制的处理方式，指出了既有主流实证分析框架和研究方法在动态纳入时间这一关键议题上存在的一系列缺陷。考虑到历史政治学在研究中对时间和空间两个维度上政治动态变迁同等程度的关注，本文指出，因果分析框架中基于过程性因果的最新讨论、方法学中有关动态计量模型的最新发展以及动态贝叶斯统计模型的最新成果，均为推动历史政治学的实证研究提供了更为恰当的方法学工具。为更有效地推动历史政治学的发展，研究人员需跳脱既有主流实证研究方法的束缚，认真对待深嵌历史视野中的时间性问题，在建模和数据分析中动态地纳入对时间维度边界条件和过程性因果的分析，通过提升研究方法与理论框架的匹配度，真正实现在历史的视野下拓展政治学研究、提炼政治学理论。

关键词: 历史政治学, 时间边界条件, 过程性因果, 动态模型