1- the logic of comparison

Question 1

what does comparative politics help us to understand?

Answer 1

• why political outcomes happen in different countries and then helps to make policies to change outcomes

Question 2

what factors make answers valuable?

Answer 2

• falsifiability, can it be proved wrong?
• internal validity, is there cause and effect in your research
• external validity: are your findings relevant to other existing research or cases?

Question 3

what is a theory?

Answer 3

a logically consistent statement that tells us why things we observe occur
trys to explain the world

Question 4

what are the three types of theory?

Answer 4

• grand narrative
• middle range
• existing literature

Question 5

what are grand narrative theories?

Answer 5

ones that try to explain everything such as marxism or feminism

Question 6

what are middle range theories?

Answer 6

transferable concepts
for example how the bourgeois are important to democratisation

Question 7

what are existing literature theories

Answer 7

particlar pheonomena
such as the domestic division of labour

Question 8

what is path dependency?

Answer 8

past conditions shape future conditions institutions can be committed to develop in certain ways as a result of their strucual properties or values
history shapes the future

Question 9

what is a dependent variable?

Answer 9

the thing you are trying to explain
ex. democratic collapse

Question 10

what is an independent variable

Answer 10

that causes of what you are trying to explain
ex. authoritarian leaders

Question 11

what are intervening variables

Answer 11

intermediate steps in a casual chain
explaining why or how the relationship exists

ex level of income helps to explain the relationship between level of education (independent variable) and spending (dependent variable)

Question 12

what is deductive reasoning

Answer 12

• when a theory is observed
• a hypothesis is created and then researched
• to either be confirmed or denied

from the general to the specific
theory to obersvation and confirmation

Question 13

what is inductive reasoning?

Answer 13

• observing something happening
• indetifies a patterns an regulartieis
• then test a hypotheiss to create a theory

obersvation to theory

Question 14

mills method of agreement

Answer 14

look for all factors that are present on all occasions that E occurs

for example when studying democratic backsliding you will look for all occasions whereit has happened and look at all the similar factors

Question 15

mills method of difference

Answer 15

• tells us to look for some factors present when E occurs and absent when another similar occasion happens when E doesn’t occur

Question 16

what research is mill’s method of difference used in?

Answer 16

‘small N’ investigations

Question 17

flaws with mill’s methods

Answer 17

• makes large assumptions leading to curiosity rather than research outcomes and the examination of only one cause rather than more than 2 factors working together
  leads to deterministic rather than probabilistic research method

Question 18

what is a casual mechanism

Answer 18

an explanation of how a cause produces and effect

Question 19

what is process tracing?

Answer 19

• involves following the steps of the causal mechanism
• links the dependent and independnet variabels together throug the process of interveinign vraibles
  links how things flow from x to y

Question 20

what are the steps of logic of process tracing?

Answer 20

• a researcher comes up with a clear and explicit casual chain
• this is derived from some general theory or common sense
• then they confirm each stage of the link do exist by utilising specific obersevations drawn from the case

Question 21

what are divergences?

Answer 21

• when two events occur with a similar factor but different outcomes

Question 22

convergences?

Answer 22

when two or more events occur without a similar factors but have similar outcomes

Question 23

what is a controlled comparison?

Answer 23

examining the relationship between an independnet variable and a dependnet variable

Question 24

advantages of controlled comparisons

Answer 24

• when done correct can generate external and internal validity
• can illuminate the world’s great divergences and convergences across nation sates
• divergences sucha s why india left british colonialism a democracy but bermuda didnt
• convergences such as the french revolution v the intervwar russian revoltion when they had similar outocomes but different motivations

Question 25

disadvantages of controlled comparisons

Answer 25

• crticised by quanitiative scholars for having restictive epstimological assumptions made that dont justify the uthors ambitions
• multi-method becoming more popular way to research

Question 26

what issues are there of trade offs in comparative research

Answer 26

• lots of research has to decide in either having a large statement after research which has wide applicbility across a broad population an dhavng a deeper narrower arguent that idenify a causual pathway in a smalll number of cases
• multimethod has calmed this down

Question 27

what are the four levels of analysis to explain politics

Answer 27

• individual agency shaping politics
• group agency shaping politics
• states
• international organisations

Question 28

what is the supply and demand argument of politics

Answer 28

do social structures shape institutions (agency) v do institutions shape social structures (strucutral)

Question 29

what are counterfactuals?

Answer 29

give a different perspective of what hasn’t happened but could have

for example
if germany had one the second world war what the world would have looked like

Question 30

disadvantages of comparison

Answer 30

• monocaulsaity: some things canot be compared with others
• endogeinity: when a variable observed that isnt included in our model is related to a varibale we have incorperated into out model
• hard to establish internal validity as some exmaples wont show cause and effect
• external validity: soem exampples are bad to be used in an external setting
• selection bais: amny researches choose exmapels that fit into their hypotheiss n dprove it right

Question 31

what do theories aim to do?

Answer 31

• produce a set of causual relationships between the DV and IV
• makes predicitions
• create a testable hypothesis
• is falsifiable

Question 32

what is epsteimology

Answer 32

the theory of knlowedge and generating knoweldge
in politics it is how to gain knowedlge to make society just

Question 33

what is ontology?

Answer 33

a way to explain the world by. putting things into categoriy. explains things as they are rather than trying to change things