We are now ready to start testing hypotheses! As we discuss in Chapter 9 of FSR, bivariate hypothesis tests, or hypothesis tests carried out with only two variables, are seldom used as the primary means of hypothesis testing in social science research today. But it is imperative to understand the basic mechanics of bivariate hypothesis tests before moving to more complicated tests. This same logic applies to the use of statistical computing software.

Chapter four returns to developments in north India, now from the mid-fourteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries. By the end of the fourteenth century, territories once under the Delhi Sultanate’s umbrella emerged as independent states. Political, economic, and cultural developments in Bengal, Gujarat, Jaunpur and Malwa are the initial focus, then we turn to Rajasthan, especially Mewar under the powerful Sisodiya ruler Rana Kuumbha. The remainder of this chapter focuses on important cultural trends across the north, including mosque and temple construction, literary developments as the use of vernaculars expanded, and widening religious beliefs. These include the spread of Sufism, the significant rise in Sant traditions including Kabir, and the increasing popularity of Krishna veneration.

One of our emphases in FSR has been on producing new causal theories, and then evaluating whether or not those theories are supported by evidence. In this chapter, we describe how to explore sources of variation – both across space, and across time – to get you started thinking about new explanations for interesting phenomena. We also help you explore how new theories can be built upon the existing work in the literature.

Chapter 3 examines the various regulatory activities in which transnational regulatory regimes commonly engage. These include standard setting, dispute resolution, technical assistance, humanitarian aid, and transnational deliberation. It also explores how each of these particular activities can be devoted to one of two distinct regulatory ‘function’. One such function looks to promote ‘efficacy’ – the regime’s ability to achieve its desired regulatory outcomes. The other looks to promote ‘interest balancing’ – balancing the competing interests of different stakeholders in a way that nevertheless retains the allegiance of all stakeholders despite their disagreements. A regime’s choice as to whether to focus on efficacy or on interest balancing effects how its regulatory activities are structured and implemented. In addition, a regime’s regulatory function can be a matter of contestation, which gives rise to issues of what this volume calls ‘operational legitimacy’ – the degree to which the regime’s stakeholders support the particular regulatory function that regime seeks to promote.

Chapter 1 examines the conceptual and methodological foundations that underlie this volume. Conceptually, it delineates transnational ‘law’ as consisting simply of that collection of transnational institutions and practices with which persons with legal training are increasingly engaged. The purpose of this volume, correspondingly, is to facilitate such engagement: to help the legal actor better understand what to look for and what the implications are of what she finds when she encounters such institutions and practices. Its methodology involves identifying the various ‘facets’ of transnational institutions and practices that are of most interest to persons working from the perspective of law (e.g., regulatory activities, governance structures); exploring how different regulatory regimes structure these facets in different ways so as to serve different regulatory purposes; and investigating how a regime’s structuring of that facet affects what the other facets of that regime can and cannot do effectively and, beyond that, the reach and shape of the regime’s overall legitimacy.

As was the case in Chapter 3, there will not be any computer-based lessons in Stata. Again, we offer some expanded exercises that will apply the lessons learned in the main text.