Applying a Counterfactual: Would 1966 Ugandan University Students Be Surprised by Ugandan Governance Today?

Abstract

Joel Barkan surveyed Ugandan university students' attitudes in 1966 and worked on Ugandan national governance three decades later. These two inquiries facilitate an unusual counterfactual analysis. Counterfactuals typically test historical explanation by manipulating an antecedent to estimate change to a known outcome. But a counterfactual can be constructed to examine how an antecedent would react to a later activity. By extrapolating from 1966 students' responses to Barkan's survey and their expected knowledge of political events, we can estimate their likely attitudes to later governance. Applying this unconventional counterfactual helps establish how far prior perception of politics illuminates later governmental practice.