Comparative Political Studies 43(7) 886–917 © The Author(s) 2010 Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0010414010361343 http://cps.sagepub.com Methodology Forum Informative Regress: Critical Antecedents in Comparative Politics Dan Slater 1 and Erica Simmons 1 Abstract How can political scientists best uncover historical causation without committing infinite regress? This article introduces a revised framework for historical analysis that can help systematically capture the deepest causal factors in political development. It improves on the familiar “critical juncture” framework by specifying the precise causal or noncausal status of the “antecedent conditions” preceding critical junctures. After disaggregating antecedent conditions into four logical types, the authors argue that scholars should be especially mindful of critical antecedents: factors or conditions preceding a critical juncture that combine in a causal sequence with factors operating during that juncture to produce divergent outcomes. Through analytic reviews of a wide array of major works, the authors illustrate how critical antecedents can clarify causal claims and enhance knowledge accumulation in comparative politics. Keywords comparative historical analysis, historical causation, critical junctures, antecedent conditions, qualitative methods, political development More slowly and less surely than some of its sister disciplines, political sci- ence has been undergoing a “historic turn.” 1 Political scientists increasingly recognize that our biggest “why” questions cannot be adequately answered 1 University of Chicago, Chicago, IL Corresponding Author: Dan Slater, University of Chicago, Department of Political Science, Chicago, IL 60637 Email: slater@uchicago.edu