Political Science 8800 Elements of Research Design Georgia State University, Fall 2009 Aderhold 205, GCB 505,

Mondays 7:15pm 9:45pm Instructor: Office: Office Hours: E-Mail: Telephone: Dr. Charles Hankla General Classroom Building 1016 Tuesday and Thursday 2:00pm 3:30pm, and by appointment chankla@gsu.edu 404-413-6172 Course Content This course introduces students to the methods necessary for systematically studying politics at a professional level. In the first of the courses four sections, we will take a close look at political science as a discipline, discussing graduate student life along with larger questions such as whether political science is in fact a science. Next, we will examine the philosophy and practice of developing rigorous research designs, including how to craft a quality literature review, how to develop a theory, and how to test that theory empirically. In the third part of the course, we will focus our attention on qualitative methods, examining what they can contribute to the research enterprise and how they can best be undertaken. Finally, we will turn to an examination of quantitative methods and develop the background necessary to understand the literature and to take the next step in POLS 8810. Requirements Grades in the course will be based on the following items: Research Question and Literature Review Paper (5-7 pages) 5% Theory and Hypotheses Paper (5-7 pages) 5% Empirical Research Design Paper (4-6 pages) 5% Full Research Design Paper (15-20 pages) 10% Two Open-Note Take-Home Exams 25% each Two Quantitative Homework Assignments 5% each Attendance and Participation 10% Attendance and Participation Parts I III of this course will be run as a discussion group, with students taking the lead in critiquing the readings and drawing broad lessons from them. I will take your viewpoints seriously, and I want all of us to learn from one another over the course of the semester. The final part of the course quantitative methods will take place in the computer lab so that we can run 1

the analyses together. Attendance in class and a prior digestion of the readings is vital for following the material. As a result, the regularity of your attendance, along with the quality of your participation, will count for 10% of your final grade. The Exams There will be two take-home exams this semester, one distributed Oct. 19 and the other distributed Nov. 30. You will have three days to complete each of these exams, and you will be permitted to use your readings and your notes from class. You must complete these assignments independently, however, without help from your classmates or anyone else. Each exam will be worth 30% of your final grade. The first exam will cover the material in Parts I III of the course and will consist of a series of short answers and essays. The second exam will cover Part IV of the course and will include questions that you will need to complete using Stata, our statistical software package. Research Design Papers You will be writing a 15-20 page research design paper. The first portion of this paper (5-7 pages in length) should encompass the literature review as well as an introductory section presenting the research question. It will be due Sept. 28. The second section (also 5-7 pages), will include a presentation of the theoretical argument and the hypotheses, and will be due Oct. 12. Finally, you will need to turn in the empirical research design portion of the analysis (4-6 pages) on Nov. 7. Each of these three papers will be 5% of your final grade. I will provide comments on each of the three papers, and you should use this feedback when merging them to produce a full version of your research design paper. This final paper will be due Nov. 23 and will be worth 15% of your grade. Homework Assignments You will need to complete two homework assignments, due Nov. 2 and Nov. 16, for the quantitative portion of the class. These will be worth 5% of your grade each. Course Policies Grading Scales: The plus/minus grading system will be in use for this class. Grades will be assigned on the following basis: A+ A AB+ B B97-100 93-96 90-92 87-89 83-86 80-82 C+ C CD F 77-79 73-76 70-72 60-69 0-59 2

Late Papers: If no compelling reason is provided, late papers will be penalized a half-letter grade for each late day. Disabilities: Those of you with disabilities should visit the GSU Disability Services Office and inform me at the beginning of the semester about any special needs that you might have. Academic Honesty: University policies on academic dishonesty and plagiarism are in effect for this course. Changes to the Syllabus: The course syllabus provides a general plan for the course; deviations may be necessary. Readings You will need to purchase four books for this course, available at the GSU Bookstore: George, Alexander L. and Andrew Bennett. 2005. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press. McGillivray, Fiona. 2004. Privileging Industry: The Comparative Politics of Trade and Industrial Policy. New York: Princeton University Press. Pollock, Philip H. III. 2008. The Essentials of Political Analysis, 3rd Edition. Washington, DC: CQ Press. Pollock, Philip H. III. 2006. A Stata Companion to Political Analysis. Washington, DC: CQ Press. (As a pack with the previous book). The assigned journal articles are all accessible online through the find journal or find article search function on the GSU library homepage. The book chapters, on the other hand, can be found online at the library reserve desk, accessible by linking from our course ULearn page. If you have any trouble locating the readings, please feel free to e-mail me. In addition, I strongly recommend that you purchase Stata so that you can complete your homework assignments and second exam at home. The university has a gradplan agreement with Stata which allows students to purchase the software at a discounted price: http://www.stata.com/order/new/edu/gradplan.html

Course Outline
Part I: Introduction to Political Science
Aug 17Introduction / Graduate Student Life Cohen, David B. 2002. Surviving the Ph.D.: Hints for Navigating the Sometimes Stormy Seas of Graduate Education in Political Science. PS: Political Science and Politics 35: 585-588. Gupta, Devashree and Israel Waismel-Manor. 2006. Network in Progress: A Conference Primer for Graduate Students. PS: Political Science and Politics 39: 485-90. Van Cott, Donna Lee. 2005. A Graduate Student's Guide to Publishing Scholarly Journal Articles. PS: Political Science and Politics 38: 741-3. Thunder, David. 2004. Back to Basics: Twelve Rules for Writing a Publishable Article. PS: Political Science and Politics 37: 493-95. Giles, Michael and James C. Garand. 2003. Journals in the Disciplines: A New Survey of Political Scientists. PS: Political Science and Politics 36 (2): 293-308. Myers, Charles T. 2004. A Short Tour of Book Publishing for Political Scientists. PS: Political Science and Politics 37: 489-91. Dalton, Russell and Randolph Silverson. 1998. Gee! Ive Never Spent 5.5 Million Before: The Six Fallacies of NSF Proposal Writing. PS: Political Science and Politics 31: 74-6. Aug 24Political Science as a Discipline: What is it? Where has it been and where is it going? How does political science advance? Is it a science? Can political science contribute to policy debates, and should it? Easton, David. 1993. "Political Science in the U.S. Past & Present," in Farr and Seidelman, eds, Discipline and History: Political Science in the United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, p. 291-310. Riker, William H. 1982. The Two-party System and Duverger's Law: An Essay on the History of Political Science. American Political Science Review 76: 753-766. Dryzek, John S. 1986. The Progress of Political Science. Journal of Politics 48 (2): 301-320. George and Bennett, Chapter 12.

Part II: The Philosophy and Practice of Research Design

Aug 31Philosophy: Do universal laws of politics exist? What is rational choice theory? What are the advantages and disadvantages of formal theory?

Almond, Gabriel A. and Stephen J. Genco. 1977. Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics. World Politics 29 (4): 489-522. Grant, Ruth W. 2002. Political Theory, Political Science, and Politics. Political Theory (30): 4: 577-595. Green, Donald P. and Ian Shapiro. 1994. Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 13-46. Chong and Diermeier in Friedman, ed. 1996. The Rational Choice Controversy. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 37-94. Sep 14 Practice: How do scholars choose a research topic? What makes a good literature review? What is theory and what is its role in research? What makes a good theory?

King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. New York: Princeton University Press, pp. 12-23. Przeworski, Adam and Henry Teune. 1970. The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry. Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing Company, pp. 3-30. McGillivray, Chapters 1 and 2. Focus on the research design. Arrive ready to discuss the literature review and theory section of an article of your choosing (one assigned in another class is fine). Sep 21 How are concepts related to variables? What does it mean to operationalize a variable? What is the difference between validity and reliability? What are observations and what is meant by unit of analysis? What is the relationship between theories, concepts, and hypotheses? What are the components of an empirical design? Practice:

Pollack, Essentials. Chapters 1 and 2.

Collier, David and Steven Levitsky. 1997. Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research. World Politics 49 (3): 430-451. King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. New York: Princeton University Press, pp. 23-33. McGillivray, Chapter 3. Focus on the research design. Arrive ready to discuss the empirical research design of the same article you brought to class last week.

Part III: Introduction to Qualitative Methods

Sep 28 How do quantitative, qualitative, and experimental empirical designs differ from one another? What can qualitative methods contribute to research? Can qualitative research be systematic?

Mahoney, James and Gary Goertz. 2006. A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Political Analysis 14(3): 227-249. King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. 1994. Designing Social Inquiry. New York: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-11. George and Bennett, Chapters 1, 2 and 7. RESEARCH QUESTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW PAPER DUE Oct 5 What is the comparative method and how should it be carried out? How should concepts be developed and measured? How should cases be selected for small-N analysis? How can researchers test causality in a small-N setting? What is process tracing? What are analytical narratives?

George and Bennett, Chapter 3-6, 8-11. Oct 12 How can data be gathered and analyzed in a qualitative setting? How should archival research and elite interviewing be carried out? What does qualitative research look like in practice?

Gamm, Katznelson, Sala, and Aldrich. 1997. Essays on Historical Political Research. The Political Methodologist 8 (1): 8-21. Find at http://polmeth.wustl.edu/tpm/tpm_v8_n1.pdf 6

Hammer, Dean and Aaron Wildavsky. 1993. The Open Ended, Semi-Structured Interview, in Wildavsky, ed. Craftways: On the Organization of Scholarly Work. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, pp. 79-135. Kelley, Judith. 2004. International Actors on the Domestic Scene: Membership Conditionality and Socialization by International Institutions. International Organization 28 (3): 425-457. Waldner, David. 1999. State Building and Late Development. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, Chapter 1. THEORY AND HYPOTHESES PAPER DUE

Part IV: Introduction to Quantitative Methods

Note: Beginning Oct. 19, class will be held in the graduate computer lab (GCB 505 (?)). Students will be provided through email with a dataset. Oct 19 Introduction to Stata: Describing and Comparing Variables

Pollack, Essentials. Chapters 3 and 4. Stata Companion, Chapters 1-5 FIRST TAKE-HOME EXAM DISTRIBUTED, DUE BY 5PM OCT. 22. Oct 26 Sampling, Inference, and Significance Testing

Pollack, Essentials. Chapters 5 and 6. Stata Companion, Chapters 6 and 7. Nov 2 Regression I

Pollack, Essentials. Chapter 7 Stata Companion, Chapters 8 and 9. EMPIRICAL DESIGN PAPER DUE FIRST HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT DUE Nov 9 Regression II

Review notes and readings from the previous week. 7

Kennedy, Peter. 1998. A Guide to Econometrics, Fourth Edition. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 4246. Morrow, James D., Randolph M. Siverson, and Tressa E. Tabares. 1998. The Political Determinants of International Trade: The Major Powers, 1907-1990. American Political Science Review 92 (3): 649-661. Nov 16 Logistic Regression and Maximum Likelihood Estimation

Pollack, Essentials. Chapter 8 Stata Companion, Chapter 10. Scheve, Kenneth. 2004. Public Inflation Aversion and the Political Economy of Macroeconomic Policymaking. International Organization 58: 1-34. SECOND HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT DUE Nov 23 Quantitative Methods Catch-up, Review and Q&A

Review your notes and readings for Section IV and bring any questions to class. FULL RESEARCH DESIGN PAPER DUE Nov 30 Quantitative Methods Catch-up, Review and Q&A

Review your notes and readings for Section IV and bring any questions to class. SECOND TAKE-HOME EXAM DISTRIBUTED, DUE BY 5PM DEC. 3.