Week 4

Question 1

how do we get the science of politics

Answer 1

adopting a language of science and
- same terms applied to all sciences
systematically and scientifically in ones inquiry of politics

Question 2

Democratic Peace Theory

Answer 2

Immanuel Kant
- democracies do not go to war each other bc best interest of the US that the authoritarian states become democracies
not all countries embrace democratic process

Question 3

Democratic Peace Theory: Concepts

Answer 3

Variables: concept, peaceful and conflictual, must be identified and (conceptualized) and measured (operationalized)
DV~IV

Question 4

Epistemic correlation

Answer 4

strenght of relationship between a concept and an indicator
how well does the indicator measure the concept?
-just a question about one variable
example: IQ test and intelligence

Question 5

Antecendent variables

Answer 5

AV: IV and DV and find something that comes before the IV that is affecting the IV variable

Question 6

intervening variables

Answer 6

Intervening variables: not before the IV but in between the two other variables

Question 7

Confounding variables

Answer 7

influences both the depending variable and independent variable, causing spurious association (false relationship ex ice cream makes crime rise)

Question 8

Democratic Peace Theory Findings:

Answer 8

two casual mechanisms
cultural argument intervening variable is culture of conflict resolution
structural argument checks and balances moderate response to crisis
when democracies invade or attack it is with an non democracy, not with democracy and democracy

Question 9

Qualitative data

Answer 9

interviewing, not coming, describing things

Question 10

Quantitative

Answer 10

numbers, legitimate to generalize, imperial evidence aka proof, data aka observations