reading 1

Question 1

significant question

Answer 1

question that is directly relevant to solving real-world problems and to furthering the goals of a specific scientific-literature

Question 2

meaningful and plausible answer to rq should

Answer 2

• help generate valid and reliable knowledge about the question
• be developed through a proces that is self-aware and critical
• political researchers should make clear and transparant how conclusions were reached

Question 3

What research practices and methods enable political researchers to conduct systematic
inquiry and thus make it possible for them to offer credible answers to important questions?

Answer 3

no consensus: diverse discipline
*even struggle to agree on name (e.g. IR as seperate discipline?)

Question 4

politics and IR

Answer 4

• recent years tendency to treat as seperate fields of study
• division of the political world into processes and structures internal to states and external to them
• increasingly seen as interdependent (book sees them as a single area of inquiry)

Question 5

empirical vs normative research

Answer 5

• empirical = events and political phenomena that we observe in the real world (what is)
• normative = questions about what should or ought to be

!distinction appears to have decreasing relevance for many scholars (they are combined + shape each other)

'’In sum, good social science is both empirically grounded ‘and relevant to human concerns’
(Gerring and Yesnowitz 2006: 133). Normative theorizing ‘must deal in facts’ and empiri-
cal work ‘must deal in values’’

they aren’t independent of one another

Question 6

distinctions drawn among qualitative/quantitative, empriical/normative, positivism/interpretivism

Answer 6

• distinction important to understand for purposes of reflection on how to go about finding credible answers to RQ
• there is a common core of practices/methods (sharp distinction is exaggerated): they are equal+judged by same standard

grand traditions polsci: positivism and interpretivism

Question 7

the method you use in conducting research always depends on:

Answer 7

1. what RQ you are trying to answer
2. what evidence or data you need to answer the RQ
3. how you are going to analyze the data and what practical steps are needed to obtain and record them

Question 8

quantitative vs qualitative research

Answer 8

different methods of analysing data (NOT of data collection)
- often seen as trade-off between detail and description (validity of measurement) + explanation and generalization (validity of inference) = rejected by the book

• quantitative research = tends to be based on the statistical analysis of carefully coded information of many cases or observations
• qualitative research = tends to be based on the discursive analysis of more loosely coded information for just a few cases

empirical research in which the researcher explores relationships using :
- numeric data (quantitative)
- textual data (qualitative

Question 9

false dichotomy quantitative and qualitative

Answer 9

• some say they are incommensurable = based on connection quantitative-positivism & qualitative=interpretivism

false dichotomy = diff. methodological positions aren’t tied to any epistemological or ontological position

book: no method is inherently better than another, but only better or less suited + all have strengths and weaknesses
!they are methodological pluralists (celebrate diversity in the field of polsci)

!! opposition between qualitative and quantitative approaches are overstated, they shouldn’t be seen as competing, but as complementary (many research designs can be either quantitative or qualitative methods/interpretation)

!the choice of one method over another with a specific research design often has to do with limitations such as time and money rather than that is has intellectual reasons for choosing one over the other

Question 10

3 broad components of the research process

Answer 10

1. key issues in the philosophy of social science (ontology and epistemology)
2. nuts and bolts / how to of research (e.g. how to formulate RQ)
3. specific methodological procedures and techniques utilized in research projects

!research proces is portraid as having linear steps, but in practice not so linear (research go back and forth e.g. between theory and evidence), it doesn’t show the proces, of research it is a representation

Question 11

part 1 research proces - philosophy of social science

• important because

Answer 11

knowledge and knowing in social science research: questions of ontology and epistemology

important for polsci researchers:

• all theorizing adopts a position on this (to understand their assumptions and implications you must be aware of ontology and epistemology of a theory)
• helps to make explicit and to develop philosophical assumptions we employ in everyday life
• if we want to find truth + see it as characteristic of valid knowledge, we need to adopt and defend assumptions about the nature of knowledge

WHAT YOU PRESUME AS KNOWABLE ABOUT THE SOCIAL WORLD WILL BEAR ON THE STRATEGIC CHOICES YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE ALL THROUGH THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH

Question 12

positivism - three tenets

Answer 12

1. scientific methods may be applied to the study of social life
2. knowledge is only generated through observation (empiricism)
3. facts and values are distinct (makes objective inquiry possible)

Question 13

interpretivism

Answer 13

social world is fundamentally diff from the world of natural phenomena + it doesn’t exist independent of our interpretation of it

Question 14

scientific realism

Answer 14

reality consists of both observable and unobservable elements

goal of scientific inquiry is to describe and explain observable and unobservable aspects of the world

Question 15

part 2 research proces: how to do research

Answer 15

the steps involved in developing a plan for pursuing research on a topic (RQ, theory and literature, hypotheses, conceptualization and operationalization (empirical indicators)

Question 16

RQ

Answer 16

• has significance for a topic or issue
• is researchable
• hasn’t been answered definitively yet (literature review)

makes the research task specific

Question 17

requirements RQ answers

Answer 17

1. answer is appropriate to the type of question (e.g. explain, describe, prescribe)
2. contributes to knowledge (it must matter, you must make a case for why the RQ is relevant and important)
3. answer must be clearly/fully specified with regard to factors/variables you think must be taken into consideration to answer the RQ (operationalization)

Question 18

hypothesis

Answer 18

hunch, suspicion, assertion, or idea about a phenomenon, relationship or situation with which research begins and which becomes the basis of inquiry (Kumar)
*needs to be verifiable/falsifiable

Question 19

confirmatory vs exploratory research

Answer 19

Confirmatory Research = Research which tests a hypothesis with evidence.

Exploratory Research =
Research which operates as a process of discovery, in which the plausibility of
a hypothesis is probed against various types of data so as to eventually generate a more concrete hypothesis which can be rigorously tested.

Question 20

research design

Answer 20

procedural plan which the researcher develops in order to answer RQ validly, objectively, accurately and economically

Question 21

data needs to be:

Answer 21

• reliable (accurately recorded)
• valid (it measures what it claims to measure)

Question 22

experimental research design (3 main designs)

Answer 22

useful for testing causal hypotheses

three main experimental designs:

1. laboratory experiments (common location)
2. field experiments (real-world setting)
3. natural experiments (researcher not active in the data gathering process)

Question 23

one of the key strengths of comparative research

Answer 23

provides bridge between domestic and international

(+we can use it to see if a self-evident truth in one context also works in another)

Question 24

logic of comparison

Answer 24

it is important to determine how many countries/cases to compare + how the cases are selected (cases you select can affect the answers you get to the RQ)

Question 25

historical research - two forms of temporality

Answer 25

• broad historical period (time as context)
• sequential active unfolding of social action and events (= represented by historical institutionalist analysis + methodologies + event structure analysis (ESA))

Question 26

Event Structure Analysis

Answer 26

ESA

analytic procedure designed to help researchers in unpacking an event and analytically reconstituting it as a causal interpretation of what happened and why it happened as it did

Question 27

survey research strength + weakness

Answer 27

strength: helps to make general claims of what sections of society/population actually think and do

weakness: can misrepresent what people think and do (misrepresentation can be seen as an error that needs to be minimized)

Question 28

survey errors

Answer 28

• measurement error (ways in which surveys use questions to try and measure different social political phenomena)
• sampling error (ways in which respondents are chosen or selected to complete the survey and the implications this has for the representativeness of the sample)

Question 29

prominent methods:

Answer 29

are different, but also similar: used to investigate similar political phenomena

in practice, it is handy to think about how to combine methods (often done in practice), because it can increase the validity of the research findings
= mixed-methods approach

there is no rule about which method should be used for which research design

Question 30

triangulation (ch. 6)

Question 31

research methods are in a sense….

Answer 31

tools of analysis

*diff tools are good for diff things BUT also often many tools are necessary to achieve one thing

Question 32

wide variety of approaches in polsci is strength, but also can be a weakness

Answer 32

• strength: diversity is embraced + researchers adopt and integrate diff approaches and engage with research across the methodological spectrum
• weakness: when divesrity fragments the field + when researchers retreat into their own enclaves and don’t engage with others