Formation/Cours

Session 1: Introduction to research in social sciences

Objective: Brief presentation of what is science, what is research and what is research in social sciences. Presentation of some key concepts that will be regularly mentioned throughout the course, such as: inference, hypothesis, validity, falsifiability, description, and causality.

Mandatory Readings:

Toshkov, D. 2016. “Introduction”, in Research Design in Political Science. London: Palgrave Macmillan. (only pp. 1-16).

King, G., R. Keohane and S. Verba. 1994. “Chapter 1. The Science in Social Science”, in Designing Social Inquiry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-33.

Session 2: The research question

Objective: Discussion on the connection between theory, literature review, and the formulation of a research question.

Mandatory Reading:

Gerring, J. 2012. “Chapter 2. Beginnings”, in Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 27-57.

Session 3: Creating hypotheses: description and causation

Objective: Focusing on how to answer a research question, description and causation will be analysed.

Mandatory readings:

Gerring, J. 2012. “Mere Description”. British Journal of Political Science, 42(4):721–746.

Gerring, J. 2012. “Chapter 8. Causal Arguments”, in Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 197-217.

Session 4: Approaching reality: Concepts, operationalization, measurement

Objective: To give students the tools to both observe theoretical concepts in reality and to measure them.

Mandatory readings:

Toshkov, D. 2016. “Chapter 4. Concepts and Operationalization”, in Research Design in Political Science. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 83-106.

Adcock, R. and D. Collier. 2001. “Measurement validity: A shared standard for qualitative and quantitative research”, American Political Science Review, 95(3):529-546.

Session 5: Methods for empirical research

Objective: Presentation of the landscape of research methods in social sciences and some of their specific techniques, allowing students to deepen on them in subsequent courses.

Mandatory readings:

Mahoney, J. and G. Goertz. 2006. “A Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research.” Political Analysis, 14:227-249.

Wood, E. J. (2007). “Chapter 5. Field research”, in C. Boix and S. Stokes (ed.), The Oxford handbook of comparative politics, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 123-146.

Session 6: Selecting cases and units of analysis

Objective: To discuss the selection of empirical cases to be studied, and not only the cases, but also what we want to observe from these cases (e.g., discourses, opinions, actions. And across multiple levels: global, national, local, individual).

Mandatory readings:

Geddes, B. 2003. “Chapter 3. How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get”, in Paradigms and Sand Castles. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 89-130.

Grønmo, S. 2020. “Chapter 7. Finding Sources and Data”, in Social Research Methods. London: SAGE, pp. 129-151.