POLI 203 - chapter 1

Question 1

what is politics about?

Answer 1

Transformation of priv preferences into public choices

Question 2

what is comparative politics?

Answer 2

The systematic study of how people around the world make and contest authoritative public choices.

Question 3

what is the first method of research in comparative politics?

Answer 3

research question which is testing boundaries about politics

hypotheses is used

Question 4

what is the second method in research of comparative politics?

Answer 4

formulating hypotheses:

Link cause and effect

Can be tested across multiple cases

Should be falsifiable otherwise its not useful (possibility that it might be incorrect) : formulation to allow for the possibility that the hypothesized relationship can be proven to be incorrect)

Question 5

what are the 2 ways of comparative methods?

Answer 5

Method of agreement: Compares and contrasts cases with diff attributes but shared outcomes.

All have diff attributes

Agree on outcome – we can never guarantee, too many possibilities.

Used to be utilized in past years.

Method of difference: same characteristics but differ in the result of the processes question

Preferable in social science – focuses on the one variable that tends to be diff.

Offers a stronger causal inference – link between cause and effect tends to be stronger.

We purposefully use countries that are very controllable, the one element that stands out is the cause of what we want to study.

Question 6

what are the challenges of comparative research?

Answer 6

1. research is not conducted in labs so evidence is unclear
2. seperating correlation from causation cannot be done in a lab or under controlled environment/
3. identifying causation - can be achieved by finding a logical explanation for patterns and correlations
   4, accessing unreliable information.

Question 7

what is correlation?

Answer 7

measure of observed association between two variables

Question 8

what is causation?

Answer 8

process that produces an observable effect.

Question 9

what is quantitative research and what are its limitations?

Answer 9

Computer analysis of statistical data

Precises cause-effect assessment

quantifies attributes and outcomes.

Challenge:
- emphasis on breadth over depth
- seek larger sample and reduce bias
– sacrfice depth of understanding of what is really going on.

Question 10

what is qualitative research and what are the limitations?

Answer 10

• focuses on an in depth understanding of events and phenomena
• uses interviews, long periods of field research and an interpretation of archival records

limitations:

• little generalization
• can get into unhelpful info without explanation
• difficult to judge the validity of a qualitative argument.