cps-theory-building
Use when building or sharpening the theoretical argument of a Comparative Political Studies (CPS) manuscript so it yields portable, testable comparative implications. Builds the mechanism and its observable implications; it does not run the empirics.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill cps-theory-building --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Theory Building (cps-theory-building) CPS rewards arguments that travel. A good CPS theory is a **mechanism with scope conditions** that generates observable implications a comparativist can test in more than one setting. Theory can be verbal-causal, formal/game-theoretic, or comparative-historical — but it must do more than label; it must predict *what should differ across cases* and *when the mechanism turns off*. ## When to trigger - Turning a comparative puzzle into a stated argument with implications - A reviewer said the paper "lacks a theory," "is descriptive," or "the mechanism is a black box" - Your finding has no portable claim — nothing another comparativist could import - You need to specify scope conditions and the contrast with the rival from `cps-literature-positioning` ## What a CPS argument must deliver 1. **A named mechanism.** State the causal process in one sentence: *actor → incentive/constraint → behavior → outcome*. Give it a portable name so it can be cited and carried. 2. **Observable implications.** List 2–4 predictions, including at least one that **distinguishes your mechanism from the rival** (not just "outcome happens"). 3. **Scope conditions.** Say
- When to trigger
- What a CPS argument must deliver
- Modes of theorizing in CPS
- The portability test (CPS-specific)
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
- Supplementary resources
What does the cps-theory-building skill do?
Use when building or sharpening the theoretical argument of a Comparative Political Studies (CPS) manuscript so it yields portable, testable comparative implications. Builds the mechanism and its observable implications; it does not run the empirics.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill cps-theory-building --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.