"Second image reversed" reexamined

The literature of "second image reversed," which studies international factors causing domestic outcomes, is central to the contemporary scholarship of international politics, and it has been long associated with Peter Gourevitch’s 1978 International Organization article. Methodological re-examinations of this "modern classic" article reveal three critical and surprising shortcomings. First, only two (out of nine) "second image reversed" arguments posited by Gourevitch are sound in terms of causal logic and empirical verifiability. These two arguments include the "Gerschenkronian thesis" and the "Seeley-Hintze law." Second, our careful scrutiny reveals that the Gerschenkronian thesis suffers from the problem of selection bias so that there may be a true causal variable at the domestic level. Third, we can detect the same set of serious problems with the Seeley-Hintze law. In sum, the foundational works of the "second image reversed" literature are not as methodologically sound, robust, and compelling as we have long assumed.