Data Accessibility in Political Science: Putting the Principle Into Practice

Like Gary King and Paul Herrnson, we believe that making our data accessible can strengthen and advance scholarly knowledge. King and Herrnson, however, disagree about the measures necessary to ensure that data are widely available to achieve this collective good. Herrnson criticizes King's recommendations as potentially bad for the profession. As scholars who have collected data and relied on others' data for our own research, and—equally important—as relatively new Ph.D.s in political science, we have our own perspective in this debate over replication and data accessibility.