Comparative Politics part 2
Designing Comparative Political Scientific Inquiry
Foundations of Contribution: According to the scholarly advice and tips from King, Keohane, and Verba (specifically referencing advice on page 16), researchers should consider specific strategies when designing their inquiry and determining their unique contribution to the field:
Addressing Unanswered Questions: Choose a hypothesis that is already discussed by scholars but where specific questions remains unanswered.
Challenging Accepted Hypotheses: As noted on page 17, another approach involves looking at a hypothesis that is widely accepted and challenging or reconsidering it, particularly if it has not been adequately confirmed.
Addressing Controversies: Look for evidence concerning one specific part of a controversy. This involves demonstrating what the controversy is and determining if it is founded or unfounded.
Questioning Assumptions: Identify and investigate assumptions that are typically left unquestioned in current literature.
Filling Liturature Gaps: Look for areas or issues that are being overlooked in existing scholarship and contribute research to fill those gaps.
Interdisciplinary Application: Consider how theories, evidence, or designs used in one discipline or type of study can be applied to other disciplines.
Comparative Logic and Design Strategies
Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD):
This design involves comparing political phenomena in different polities, countries, regions, or societies that appear quite similar.
The goal is to explore differences that exists within these seemingly similar systems.
Most Different Systems Design (MDSD):
This design makes comparisons between polities, states, and societies that appear very different on the surface (different structures, systems, and polities).
The goal is to look for and compare shared phenomena, issues, or ideas that exist within these different systems.
Design Combinations: Researchers may choose to use a combination of most similar and most different systems designs.
Limits of Plausible Argumentation: The most compelling research often comes from the unexpected. Researchers should look for comparisons that have been overlooked or not previously considered, pushing the limits of what is considered plausible.
Interdisciplinary Approaches: Expanding perspective by applying insights, methods, or theories from other fields is highly encouraged. Examples of contributing disciplines include:
Physical sciences
Economics
Anthropology
History
Communications
Engineering
Temporal and Cross-National Dimensions of Comparison
Internal Polilateral Comparison: Comparison can occur within a single polity or society by using time as a variable.
Longitudinal Comparisons: These involve studying the same country over a long stretch of time, a short stretch of time, or at a specific point in history.
Cross-National Temporal Comparisons: Comparing different nations in terms of their histories and time-based developments provides a deeper level of insight.
The Purpose of Comparison: Comparing allows for a deeper appreciation and sophisticated understanding of diversity in:
Experiences
Institutions
Systems
Societies
Lived experiences
The Infrastructure of Comparative Research Programs
Generating Research Questions: In comparative politics, there is often no single logical way to create a research question; it involves creating inference from observations.
The Role of Definitions: High importance must be placed on the perspectives from which definitions are drawn, as they serve as the foundation for all following work.
The Role and Danger of Description:
Care must be taken not to engage in "description for description's sake."
Avoid simply listing facts or chronological events (e.g., "this happened, then this happened").
Description must be used specifically to support a thesis or a central idea.
Explanation: Researchers must focus on why a specific explanation matters to their thesis and to future scholars, ensuring description underlies these points.
Prediction: This is a difficult task in social science. It must be approached as :
Probabilistic: Understanding that outcomes are suggestive rather than certain.
Non-Inevitable: Recognizing that things will not necessarily develop in a specific, steadfast way.
Prescription: While researchers may provide recommendations, they must understand that these are not "cure-alls" and are subject to particular, sometimes unknown, circumstances.
Uncertain Conclusions: Scientific inference is imperfect. Acknowledging uncertainty in conclusions is helpful because it leaves openings for further research and new questions.
Public Procedures: Research procedures must be public and transparent. This allows:
Other scholars to build upon the work.
The original researcher to build upon their own past work in the future.
Proper citation to credit the scholars whose work provided the basis for the study.
The Research and Writing Cycle for Assignments
Iterative Process: Writing in the social sciences is non-linear and involves a cycle of steps:
Choosing a topic.
Reviewing the literature (this involves reading much more than what eventually ends up in the final paper).
Creating hypotheses.
Formulating a thesis statement.
Collecting data.
Analyzing secondary data.
Developing a narrative.
Sharing and publishing results.
Back-and-Forth Movement: Researchers often move between reviewing literature, testing hypotheses, and reconsidering the thesis statement multiple times as new data or insights are found.
Topic Selection: Students are encouraged to choose topics that drive their own scholarly interests to ensure the process remains enjoyable and engaging.
Technical Elements: Hypotheses, Thesis, and Data
Hypotheses Development: A hypothesis should suggest a relationship between variables, specifically looking at cause-and-effect relationships between:
Dependent Variables
Independent Variables
The Thesis Statement: Usually a single sentence or two that summarizes the fundamental argument, the contribution, and the logic of "if then, what."
Analyzing Secondary Data: This often involves looking at statistical data to understand what the numbers convey.
Measures of Central Tendency: Common ways to measure and look at data include:
Mean: The average value.
Median: The midpoint of the distribution.
Mode: The most common value in the distribution.
Narrative and Representational Logic
Narrative Construction: This refers to the "story" the research tells—why the topic matters and how it is interpreted.
Speech Acts and Representation: Research involves considering what kind of narratives are being represented and how they are conveyed by states, societies, or individuals.
Interpreting Data: The contribution of the researcher lies in interpreting what information or narratives tell us about the phenomenon, especially in a comparative context.
Competing Narratives: Narratives can be cooperative or competing; understanding these interactions is central to the research program.
Ethics in Social Science Research
Ethics Definition: A system of values and principles that guide a person's behavior.
Respect for Dignity: Researchers must respect the dignity and intrinsic value of individuals, groups, and societies addressed in the work.
Concern for Welfare: Particularly in field work, researchers must ensure there are no risks to participants and prioritize their welfare.
Justice: This involves treating all people involved or discussed fairly, equally, and with respect.