3: Conceptualisation and Measurement in the Real World Flashcards
What are the complications of the real world?
- Forming a systematised concept.
- When attributes are concepts.
- Atrribute or predictor?
- Redundancy.
- Conflation.
- Measurement.
- Missing data.
Why is forming a systematised concept difficult?
Different conceptualisations of one concept is possible.
How is the conceptualisation of democracy different in Africa compared to the western liberal model? (Forming a systematised concept)
Africa - most societies are pre-industrial and communal, diff culture - therefore their conceptualisation would be diff to the west. Do not separate political democracy from economic well being.
West - economic prosperity is not an attribute of democracy - but is is for Africa.
Which defintion do you choose? (Forming a systematised concept)
Depends on the objective of your research.
What is the hypothesis of modernisation theory? (Forming a systematised concept)
The higher the level of economic development = higher the level of democracy in a country.
What is the process of modernisation theory? (Forming a systematised concept)
Country develops, agarian > industrialised, brings people closer in factories, better communication, higher wages, m/c, m/c will demand a say in politics.
What is economic development lead to according to modernisation theory? (Forming a systematised concept)
Economic development = western liberal democracy.
If you wanted to test this theory in Africa - we would use a systematised concept of western liberal democracy - end point of modernisation. It can be compared with other literature.
Which def would you use when describing the level of democracy in Africa? (Forming a systematised concept)
A def of democracy that is Africa-specific can be used. Africans do not necessarily aspire for a western liberal democracy.
Why is a difficult when attributes are concepts?
Need to do a conceptualisation of a conceptualisation. Need to add sub-attributes to attributes of the concept. e.g. economic development atrributes (health + edu) - are concepts themselves.
Why is it difficult to decide when something is an attribute or a predictor?
Democracy - is economic development and attribute or predictor? Western liberal democracy - predictor, African democracy - attribute.
What is an independent variable? (Attribute or predictor?)
Influences or helps us predict the level of a dependent variable. It is often treated as fixed or given in statistical analysis, also called an explanatory variable.
What is a dependent variable? (Attribute or predictor?)
Dependent through statistical or stochastic process on the value of an independent variable.
What is redundancy?
A situation in which variables do not tap into mutually exclusive (sub-) attributes.
How is there redundancy in western liberal democracy? (Redundancy)
Western liberal democracy - attribute: participation. Participation has 2 sub-attributes: 1. extent to which people are allowed to vote, 2. extent to which people make use of their right - turnout. Both are the same - extent of vote.
What is conflation? + example
A variable does not belong to the atrribute in question, but to a diff one. e.g. health - info on how many signed off sick per year - may think this relates to longevity - people who are sick often, die earlier. This info relates to a diff attribute - absence of disease.
How can the origin of data effect measurement? (GDP)
Origin of data - relating to GDP - World Development Indicators, World Bank 2017. True origin - National Office of Statistics in each country. Within each country the calculation of official stats, like GDP, is subject to political priorities.
Why are some economic activities not recorded? (Measurement)
Not observable. Developing countries - ignore a lot of economic activity taking place in the country. Rural trasnscations are not conducted in cash, illegal transcations - GDP figure lower.
How did Zambia caluclate their GDP? (Measurement)
Included informal economy in the GDP = new problems - estimate vs certainty.
What is data? (Missing data)
Collection of number (or quantities) for the purpose of analysis.
What do you do if there is not data avaliable? (Missing data)
Use an alternative measure, may be inferior - not measure the concept well, but more data avaliable. Have to choose this measure - more data is always better in quantitative research.
