Political Science 022 – Political Research: Theories and Methods

                                        Fall Semester 2024


                                           Instructors:


                                          Andrew Roberts

                                        233595@mail.muni.cz


                                            Peter Spáč

                                         spac@fss.muni.cz


Course Objectives

The aim of this course is to acquaint students with research design and methodology in political
science. The focus will be on both the basics of research design and more advanced techniques in
qualitative and quantitative methods. We will emphasize practical issues as well as theoretical
ones in an effort to help students with their dissertation projects.


Course Requirements

Students are required to attend three of the five class meetings and complete three short exercises
associated with those meetings. They may choose classes that are most relevant to their projects,
but they should attend the first meeting. Meetings 3 and 4 will use JASP software (no previous
knowledge on JASP is needed). Students should be prepared to discuss the required readings at these
seminars.


Course Meetings


Meeting 1: Research Design Basics (Roberts)

·         Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Anthony Fowler, Thinking Clearly with Data, chapters 1-4.

·         David Collier, Jason Seawright, and Gerardo Munck, “The Quest for Standards: King,
Keohane’s and Verba’s Designing Social Inquiry” in Brady and Collier, eds., Rethinking Social
Inquiry (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010).

·         Andrew Gelman and Guido Imbens, “Why Ask Why? Forward Causal Inference and Reverse Causal
Questions”, working paper.

Assignment: Questions about your dissertation project.


Students are required to attend two (2) of the following four (4) classes.


Meeting 2: Advanced Qualitative Techniques (Roberts)

·         James Mahoney, “After KKV: The New Methodology of Qualitative Research”, World Politics
(2010).

·         James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and
Qualitative Research”, Political Analysis (2006).

·         Andrew Bennett, “Process Tracing and Causal Inference” in Brady and Collier, eds.,
Rethinking Social Inquiry (Rowman and Littlefield, 2010).

·         Jason Seawright & John Gerring, “Case Selection Techniques in Case Study Research: A Menu
of Qualitative and Quantitative Options”, Political Research Quarterly (2008).

·         David Collier, Jody Laporte, and Jason Seawright, “Putting Typologies to Work: Concept
Formation, Measurement, and Analytic Rigor”, Political Research Quarterly (2012).

Assignment: Complete one of the exercises in David Collier, “Teaching Process Training: Examples
and Exercises” which is available at Collier’s website:
https://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/person/david-collier or 4 questions in Goertz et al:
http://assets.press.princeton.edu/releases/m8089.pdf.


Meeting 3: Experiments (Spáč)
  * Druckman, J. - Green, D. - Kuklinski, J. - Lupia, A. (2011): Experiments. An Introduction to
Core Concepts. In:  Druckman, J. - Green, D. - Kuklinski, J. - Lupia, A. (eds.): Cambridge Handbook
of Experimental Political Science. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 15-26.
  * McDermott, R. (2011): Internal and External Validity.  In:  Druckman, J. - Green, D. -
Kuklinski, J. - Lupia, A. (eds.): Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Political Science. New York:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 27-40.

Assignment: Prepare a hypothetical experimental study. Select aims of a hypothetical research, set
your hypotheses, provide a detailed design of your experiment and suggest possible way of analysis
of its results.


Meeting 4: Regression analysis (Spáč)
  * Field, A. (2009): Discovering Statistics Using SPSS. London: SAGE, pp. 197-242.

Assignment: Complete tasks concerning regression analysis (obtained after attending the meeting).


Meeting 5: New Techniques for Causal Inference (Roberts)

·         Thad Dunning, Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, 2012), chapters 1-4.

·         Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Anthony Fowler, Thinking Clearly with Data, chapters 12 and
13.

·         Philip Schrodt, “Seven Deadly Sins of Contemporary Quantitative Analysis”, Journal of
Peace Research (2013).

Assignment:  Answer the questions at the end of chapter 2 in Dunning’s Natural Experiments in the
Social Sciences.