Research Books

Political Science Research Methods

Janet Buttolph Johnson, H. T. Reynolds, Jason D. Mycoff

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 1.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Don t let an introduction to research methods be your students least favorite (and most intimidating) political science course. Relevant, timely, insightful, comprehensive, and always mindful of their student audience, the authors have revamped their popular text so that the sixth edition is friendlier and more intuitive than ever the perfect gateway to understanding not just the how but also the why behind research into politics.

Covering the discipline s major methods, the authors lead students step-by-step through the logic of research design. Building block chapters on hypothesis formation and testing, variables, and measurement are right up front; the introduction to research design, sampling, and literature reviews now come with more explanation as to why a researcher would pursue different kinds of methods; the stats chapters begin with a common-sense primer that walks students through foundational ideas and practices. Throughout the text, updated examples of contemporary research problems keep readers engaged.

Each chapter has bolded key terms that are also listed in a glossary at the end of each chapter and the end of the text. Helpful hints feature boxes give students nuts-and-bolts reminders they can refer to when they conduct their own research or assess the work of others.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

• New examples of political science research in Chapter 1, including a case on judicial decision making and current research into public opinion on the war in Iraq.
• Expanded discussion of theory in Chapter 2, showing how competing paradigms can be applied to the same topic of study.
• Substantially updated discussion of survey research including coverage of Internet polling and a fuller description of interviewing.
• Computational formulas and calculations are now featured in How It s Done boxes allowing students to separate lengthy calculations from substantive discussion of the meaning or interpretation of statistical results.
• Greater coverage of newer developments in applied statistics, including exploratory data analysis and descriptive and inferential statistics for counts and functions of counts. In general, less emphasis on computation, and more on interpretation.
• Reorganized statistics chapters for better comprehension with regression analysis and logistic regression in their own chapters.
• A new overview of statistical analysis, including discussion of data preparation, description, modeling, inference, interpretation, and the communication of results.

The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-1979 (Lectures at the College de France)

Michel Foucault

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this liberal governmentality. This involves describing the political rationality within which the specific problems of life and population were posed: "Studying liberalism as the general framework of biopolitics".

What are the specific features of the liberal art of government as they were outlined in the Eighteenth century? What crisis of governmentality characterises the present world and what revisions of liberal government has it given rise to? This is the diagnostic task addressed by Foucault's study of the two major twentieth century schools of neo-liberalism: German ordo-liberalism and the neo-liberalism of the Chicago School. In the years he taught at the Collège de France, this was Michel Foucault's sole foray into the field of contemporary history. This course thus raises questions of political philosophy and social policy that are at the heart of current debates about the role and status of neo-liberalism in twentieth century politics. A remarkable feature of these lectures is their discussion of contemporary economic theory and practice, culminating in an analysis of the model of homo oeconomicus.

Foucault's analysis also highlights the paradoxical role played by "society" in relation to government. "Society" is both that in the name of which government strives to limit itself, but it is also the target for permanent governmental intervention to produce, multiply, and guarantee the freedoms required by economic liberalism. Far from being opposed to the State, civil society is thus shown to be the correlate of a liberal technology of government.

Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science

Stephen Van Evera

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

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"Stephen Van Evera's Guide to Methods makes an important contribution toward improving the use of case studies for theory development and testing in the social sciences. His trenchant and concise views on issues ranging from epistemology to specific research techniques manage to convey not only the methods but the ethos of research. This book is essential reading for social science students at all levels who aspire to conduct rigorous research."--Alexander L. George, Stanford University, and Andrew Bennett, Georgetown University

"Van Evera has a keen awareness of the questions that arise in every phase of the political science research project--from initial conception to final presentation. Although others may not agree with all of his specific advice, all will appreciate his user-friendly introduction to what is sometimes seen as an abstract and difficult topic."--Timothy J. McKeown, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

For the last few years, Stephen Van Evera has greeted new graduate students at MIT with a commonsense introduction to qualitative methods in the social sciences. His helpful hints, always warmly received, grew from a handful of memos to an underground classic primer. That primer has now evolved into a book of how-to information about graduate study, which is essential reading for graduate students and undergraduates in political science, sociology, anthropology, economics, and history--and for their advisers.

Working with Political Science Research Methods: Problems and Exercises

Janet Buttolph Johnson, H. T. Reynolds

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Does the science part of political science cause your students to break out in a cold sweat? This companion workbook gives students the perfect opportunity to practice each of the methods presented in the text. To maximize their ability to master each technique, the workbook is organized to parallel the text chapter for chapter, breaking out each aspect of the research process into manageable parts, and comes with updated data sets and primary documents. Given invaluable feedback from adopters, this second edition workbook has been restructured so that exercises more consistently increase in complexity and degree of difficulty, and fuller, more explicit directions accompany problems.

Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference

Gary King

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

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One of the hallmarks of the development of political science as a discipline has been the creation of new methodologies by scholars within the discipline--methodologies that are well-suited to the analysis of political data. Gary King has been a leader in the development of these new approaches to the analysis of political data. In his book, Unifying Political Methodology, King shows how the likelihood theory of inference offers a unified approach to statistical modeling for political research and thus enables us to better analyze the enormous amount of data political scientists have collected over the years. Newly reissued, this book is a landmark in the development of political methodology and continues to challenge scholars and spark controversy.

"Gary King's Unifying Political Methodology is at once an introduction to the likelihood theory of statistical inference and an evangelist's call for us to change our ways of doing political methodology. One need not accept the altar call to benefit enormously from the book, but the intellectual debate over the call for reformation is likely to be the enduring contribution of the work."

--Charles Franklin, American Political Science Review

"King's book is one of the only existing books which deal with political methodology in a clear and consistent framework. The material in it is now and will continue to be essential reading for all serious students and researchers in political methodology." --R. Michael Alvarez, California Institute of Tech-nology

Gary King is Professor of Government, Harvard University. One of the leading thinkers in political methodology, he is the author of A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data and other books and articles.

Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice

Rosalee A. Clawson, Zoe M. Oxley

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Our national obsession with opinion polls reflects an assumption that what people think and believe matters. But does it? Do citizens endorse the basic principles of a democratic system? How much knowledge should they have? And do they organize their political thinking? In a new introductory text for public opinion courses, Clawson and Oxley clearly and systematically link these enduring normative questions of democratic theory to the existing empirical research on public opinion to explore the tension between those ideals and their practice.

After introducing these normative debates, the authors then assess how well theorists in political science as well as in related disciplines such as sociology and psychology have responded and the empirical evidence they have marshaled. Each subsequent chapter takes on one of those central questions and focuses on a handful of exemplary studies instead of synthesizing all of the relevant literature. Rather than overwhelming students with encyclopedic detail, students see how methods are applied within the context of specific studies, providing a richer understanding of the research process than a standalone methods chapter can offer.

The Essentials of Political Analysis

Philip H., III Pollock

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

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Hypothesis testing? Correlation? Did you say logistic regression?? You are probably used to seeing concerned looks on the faces of your methods students. Student anxiety about this course always runs high given the nature of seemingly intimidating material. Philip Pollock's first order of business is to get math-phobic students comfortable learning and using the tools of political analysis. His brief and accessible text puts students at ease with a conversational writing style and plenty of real-world and political examples.

Providing a strong conceptual foundation, The Essentials of Political Analysis walks students through the basics--measuring concepts, formulating and testing hypotheses, describing variables--and then, through a companion SPSS volume with easy-to-use canned data sets, prepares them to apply what they learn immediately on the computer. The author's engaging and straightforward prose clearly introduces key terms and concepts while chapter-opening objectives cue students to learning goals. Over eighty tables and figures enhance important textual material. Class-tested chapter exercises promote skill application and aid student review.

Fans of Pollock's practical introduction to the methods course will appreciate the second edition's many improvements, from more comparative and international material to a brand new chapter on logistic regression. Introducing students to one of the discipline's most widely used statistical tools, students learn the logic of logistic regression, maximum likelihood estimation and how to convert logits into probabilities.

Shaping the Next One Hundred Years: New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis

Robert J. Lempert

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An excellent guide for forward-thinkers and strategists 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

The collaboration of Robert J. Lempert, Steven W. Popper and Steven C. Bankes, Shaping The Next One Hundred Years: New Methods For Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis offers complex mathematical analysis techniques for making long-term policy predictions. Sample models, ways to analyze sustainable development, robust and adaptive strategies, and more fill the pages of this technical guide focusing upon quantitative approaches to long-term policy analysis. An excellent guide for forward-thinkers and strategists in business who must take into account such diverse considerations as environmental protection, political terrorism, genetic technologies, international trade developments, and more, Shaping The Next One Hundred Years is very strongly recommended reading.

The Next 100 years of Strategic Thinking 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

"Shaping the Next One Hundred Years" by Lempert, Popper and Bankes is as an exciting new book on strategic thinking and is comparable in importance to Michael Porter's "Competitive Strategy ". The book describes a methodology that mirrors how successful business leaders think while using novel software to expand and codify the decision making process. Lempert et al accomplish this by using exploratory modeling to evaluate the myriad possible futures a decision maker faces and then comparing different strategies against the desired metrics. The results are new insights and a strategy that works regardless of unpredictable events the future. The methodology is revolutionary and will become the preeminent way important decisions are made.

Editorial Review:

What should people do today to shape the next hundred years to their liking?

Rational Choice and Security Studies: Stephen Walt and His Critics (International Security Readers)

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Formal theories and rational choice methods have become increasingly prominent in most social sciences in the past few decades. Proponents of formal theoretical approaches argue that these methods are more scientific and sophisticated than other approaches, and that formal methods have already generated significant theoretical progress. As more and more social scientists adopt formal theoretical approaches, critics have argued that these methods are flawed and that they should not become dominant in most social-science disciplines.

Rational Choice and Security Studies presents opposing views on the merits of formal rational choice approaches as they have been applied in the subfield of international security studies. This volume includes Stephen Walt's article "Rigor or Rigor Mortis? Rational Choice and Security Studies," critical replies from prominent political scientists, and Walt's rejoinder to his critics.

Walt argues that formal approaches have not led to creative new theoretical explanations, that they lack empirical support, and that they have contributed little to the analysis of important contemporary security problems. In their replies, proponents of rational choice approaches emphasize that formal methods are essential for achieving theoretical consistency and precision.

Evaluating Methodology in International Studies (Millennial Reflections on International Studies)

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