Scope and Methods 1

Political science

Political science

the systematic study of government and politics, can systematically observe/explain how poli systems operate how they do

3 systems of organization

organized religion, economics, poli/gov't

empiricism

describing facts of the world as they are (fact based)

science

a way of evaluating the world

normative

opinion based, preferences

theory

explanation of how the world works (generalization)

theory of proximity voting

explanation on how people decide who to vote for, in theory voters vote for the candidate they feel closest to

inductive theory

a method of reasoning that uses specific observations to draw general conclusions, or theories

deductive theory

come up with a theory and use it to predict behavior

institutionalism, legal, behavioralist, rational choice, historical institutionalism

approaches of POLA

institutionalism

looks at gov't institutions

legal

rules of government (aka laws, legal framework, and doctrine)

behavioralist

look at people's preferences/behaviors/etc to explain broader happenings in POLA, strict focus on empiricism

rational choice

comes from econ, can approach a lot of poli sci Qs w/ an understanding of utility, very quantitative and deductive

Historical institutional

looks at institutions over larger sweeps of time, qualitative

inside gov't, outside gov't, in-between

topics of POLA research

comparative politics

more qualitative than quantitative

comparative checking

allows comparisons across cases while entertaining a range of potential explanations, used when can't control variables in qualitative research

falsifiability

a statement or hypothesis that can be rejected in the face of contravening evidence

international development

study of endeavors to improve quality of life of people around the world (lots of topics)

abroad

politics meant to help other (typ poorer) countries

at home

how a country/society develops over time and how to improve in the future

global

how has worldwide developed together

unit of analysis

scale of analysis (in pub opinion survey, it is individuals)

micro

how to eliminate poverty for an individual or particular group of ppl

macro

development might be entire global system

positivism

another word for empirical work

critical social science

framework; doing work to make people's lives better

language skills, mapping, field experiments, causality

tools of IDEV

international visibility

recognition/acknowledgement of scholars, research, and academic community q/in field of IR on the global scale

dominance of US-American IR, semi-visible IR communities, sizeable and (self)marginalized

IR as a 3-tiered discipline

dominance of US-American IR

soft power is being projected in large scales, tough to challenge

semi-visible IR communities

2nd category of IR communities like Britain, China, Denmark, and Canada, typically global north

sizeable and (self)marginalized

largest in terms of IR community, most isolated and marginalized in terms of IR visibility and power, typically global south

paradigm

a set of beliefs, values, and practices that shape how scholars understand and study a particular field

specific, significant, purposeful, interesting, contradicts assumptions

characteristics of a good RQ

personal experience, current events/news, convos among scholars

sources

change over time/context/people, replication

if RQ already answered

literature review

A part of a paper that reviews previous work and establishes you understand what has already been done on topic

get insight on similar ideas, find existing RQs and gaps in knowledge, develop hypothesis, directs research

why lit review

scholarly sources

an RQ answered in a longish paper, undergone peer review

monographs

book where each chapter discusses similar RQs on a broader theme

chapters in an edited volume

book w/ each chapter by a different author, coherent theme but different takes

conference presentations

not fully peer reviewed, but more modern/relevant

what is specific RQ, what are their data, what are their findings

when reading lit reviews

variables

something that varies/not a constant, concepts in poli world we want to describe

dependent variable

thing we're trying to explain, why does it change

independent variable

what causes change, the explanation

Antecendent Variable

a variable that occurs before and may be a cause of other variables in a causal relationship

Intervening variable

has an impact on psychological construct and isn't really measurable

hypotheses

an explicit explanation that explains how things are related

operational definition

needed to measure research, concept of measurement moving from concept to variable

reliability

with repeated use you get the same data

validity

you measure correctly

internal validity

if accurately measuring what's going on in your project, what you're measuring is actually taking place

external validity

if concept is an accurate reflection of what is happening in world

nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio

levels of measurement

nominal

merely names something, only thing you can tell is the presence/absence of the variable

ordinal

suggests an order, implies some kind of quantification, higher levels mean more

ratio

order and gaps in between matter (has an absolute 0)

index

having multiple measures for 1 thing, a way to get away from dummy variables

politics

who gets what, when, and how

ontology

what is the world all about

epistemology

what theory to use

methodology

what tool to use