Research Books - Page 2

Working with Political Science Research Methods: Problems and Exercises

Janet Buttolph Johnson, H. T. Reynolds

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Editorial Review:

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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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

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.

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

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Editorial Review:

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.

The Craft of Political Research (Prentice-Hall Contemporary Comparative Politics Series)

W. Phillips Shively

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

For anyone preparing to write a thesis 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I am a Master's degree student in the throes of writing my thesis. Initially, I had absolutely no idea how to go about the process until I took a class in which this book was part of the cirriculum. Shively breaks down the process step by step and prepares you for contingencies that are bound to happen along the way. Chapter two is especially useful in learning how to choose a topic and furthermore, a question from which to base a thesis.

Editorial Review:

This warm and accessible book makes a very basic introduction to the nature of research questions and methods of empirical research in political science. It aims to have readers understand why a particular method is chosen, beyond just what method to choose—and communicates not only how to conduct research, but how interesting and exciting original research can be. Chapter topics emphasize the internal logic of empirical measurement and analysis of observations in the conception and pursuit of a research project. Emphasizing the design of interesting research questions and basic problems of measurement and data analysis, this book relies more on intuitive understanding than on formal development. For individuals interested in political science research methods.

Watching Politicians: Essays on Participant Observation

Richard F. Fenno

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Research Methods in Politics

Roger Pierce

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Editorial Review:

Research Methods in Politics is an accessible and student-friendly guide to the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in researching politics. This clearly written book is ideal for use on introductory methods courses and its helpful structure also makes it a useful guide for readers who are doing their own research project. Roger Pierce covers every angle in his overview of contemporary approaches to political research:

• Part I: Introduction – gives a solid overview of the philosophy and principles of research.
• Part II: Methodologies – presents qualitative and quantitative research methods, introduces research design and offers a critical review of selected methods.
• Part III: Collecting Information – concentrates on methods of gathering information, such as interviews and focus groups, and discusses issues associated with ensuring quality of information.
• Part IV: Analyzing and Interpreting the Information – deals with selecting and employing appropriate methods for analyzing and interpreting data, and covers the process of communicating research.

Methods for analyzing both quantitative and qualitative information are covered, including factor analysis and discourse analysis. The inclusion of chapter objectives, regular summaries, questions for discussion, and tasks and assignments, makes this the must-have text for anyone studying research methods as part of an undergraduate or graduate politics course.

Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics (Analytical Perspectives on Politics)

Barbara Geddes

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Editorial Review:

Paradigms and Sand Castles describes in a lively and provocative manner the methodological pitfalls most characteristic of the study of developing countries. Although much of this book focuses on the concrete details of empirical research, its primary goal is to aid theory building. Its central message is that theoretical knowledge could be accumulated more rapidly if certain research norms in the field of comparative development were changed.
The book deals with several standard methodological practices, showing their unfortunate consequences and making suggestions for their improvement. Traditionally, big subjects of immense real-world importance, such as democratization, economic development, and ethnic mobilization, have fascinated scholars of comparative politics. But the choice of a big question for study does not translate automatically into a feasible research design. Barbara Geddes offers a strategy for approaching big questions and addresses empirical issues such as effective use of evidence found in case studies to test arguments, the intricacies of operationalizing complicated and often "fuzzy" concepts, the nonquantitative "measurement" of such concepts, and determining the criteria for setting the boundaries of the domain within which an argument should apply.
Barbara Geddes is Professor of Political Science, University of California at Los Angeles.

Political Complexity: Nonlinear Models of Politics

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Editorial Review:

This collection illustrates how nonlinear methods can provide new insight into existing political questions. Politics is often characterized by unexpected consequences, sensitivity to small changes, non-equilibrium dynamics, the emergence of patterns, and sudden changes in outcomes. These are all attributes of nonlinear processes. Bringing together a variety of recent nonlinear modeling approaches, Political Complexity explores what happens when political actors operate in a dynamic and complex social environment.
The contributions to this collection are organized in terms of three branches within non-linear theory: spatial nonlinearity, temporal nonlinearity, and functional nonlinearity. The chapters advance beyond analogy towards developing rigorous nonlinear models capable of empirical verification.
Contributions to this volume cover the areas of landscape theory, computational modeling, time series analysis, cross-sectional analysis, dynamic game theory, duration models, neural networks, and hidden Markov models. They address such questions as: Is international cooperation necessary for effective economic sanctions? Is it possible to predict alliance configurations in the international system? Is a bureaucratic agency harder to remove as time goes on? Is it possible to predict which international crises will result in war and which will avoid conflict? Is decentralization in a federal system always beneficial?
The contributors are David Bearce, Scott Bennett, Chris Brooks, Daniel Carpenter, Melvin Hinich, Ken Kollman, Susanne Lohmann, Walter Mebane, John Miller, Robert E. Molyneaux, Scott Page, Philip Schrodt, and Langche Zeng.
This book will be of interest to a broad group of political scientists, ranging from those who employ nonlinear methods to those curious to see what it is about. Scholars in other social science disciplines will find the new methodologies insightful for their own substantive work.
Diana Richards is Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Minnesota.

Rational Choice (Political Analysis)

Andrew Hindmoor

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Editorial Review:

Rational choice is the dominant theoretical approach in political science in North America and one of the main contending approaches elsewhere. This major new text provides a clear and accessible introduction assuming no prior knowledge and providing a uniquely fair-minded assessment of both the strengths and limitations of the approach. Truly international in scope and in its choice of examples, it provides broad-ranging coverage of the areas in which rational choice has been widely used and in-depth coverage of the main works of its key protagonists.

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

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