Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1

Introduction and course rationale

Course overview and rationale

Why qualitative research?

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Shapiro, I. "Problems, Methods, and Theories in Political Science, or: What's Wrong with Political Science and What to Do About it." In Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics. Edited by I. Shapiro, R. M. Smith, and T. E. Masoud. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780521539432.

2

Philosophy of social science

Philosophical commitments of social science

Positivist vs. (and?) interpretivist approaches

Behavioral assumptions in social science research

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996, chapters 2, 3, 9, and 10. ISBN: 9780226458083.

Buy at Amazon Popper, K. "Normal Science and its Dangers." In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1970. ISBN: 9780521096232.

Buy at Amazon Lakatos, I. "Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes." In Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Edited by I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1965. ISBN: 9780521096232.

Buy at Amazon Burrell, G., and G. Morgan. Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1979, pp. 1-9 and 130-143. ISBN: 9781857421149.

Morgan, G., and L. Smircich. "The Case for Qualitative Research." Academy of Management Review 5, no. 4 (1980): 491-500.

Buy at Amazon Bates, R. "The International Coffee Organization: An International Institution." In Analytical Narratives. Edited by R. Bates, et al. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780691001296.

Recommended readings

Elster, J. "Rational Choice History." American Political Science Review 94, no. 3 (2000): 685-695.

Buy at Amazon Sil, R. "Problems Chasing Methods or Methods Chasing Problems? Research Communities, Constrained Pluralism, and the Role of Eclecticism." In Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics. Edited by I. Shapiro, R. M. Smith, and T. E. Masoud. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780521539432.

Friedman, M. "The Methodology of Positive Economies." In Readings in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences. Edited by M. Brodbeck. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1968. ASIN: B000OKUWJK.

3

Causation, explanation, and mechanisms

What is causal explanation?

Can qualitative research establish causality?

How can qualitative research reveal mechanisms?

Required readings

Buy at Amazon King, G., R. Keohane, and S. Verba. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, chapter 3. ISBN: 9780691034713.

Tilly, C. "Mechanisms in Political Processes." Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 21-41.

Chandra, K. "Mechanisms v/s Outcomes." Essay for Symposium on David Laitin's Work, Newsletter of APSA Section on Qualitative Methods, 2006.

Buy at Amazon Petersen, R. Resistance and Rebellions: Lessons from Eastern Europe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006, chapters 1 and 6. ISBN: 9780521035156.

Recommended readings

Buy at Amazon Elster, J. "A Plea for Mechanisms." In Social Mechanisms: An Analytical Approach to Social Theory. Edited by Peter Hedstrom and Richard Swedberg. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780521596879.

Fearon, J. "Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science." World Politics 43, no. 2 (1991): 169-195.

4

Research discovery and design

Discovering a research question

Designing qualitative research

Triangulation

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Abbott, A. Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004, chapters 1 and 2. ISBN: 9780393978148.

Buy at Amazon Mills, C. W. "On Intellectual Craftmanship." In The Sociological Imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780195133738.

Buy at Amazon King, G., R. Keohane, and S. Verba. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994, chapters 1 and 4. ISBN: 9780691034713.

Buy at Amazon Locke, R. Remaking the Italian Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997, chapters 1 and 4. ISBN: 9780801484216.

Recommended readings

Buy at Amazon Brady, H., and D. Collier, eds. Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. ISBN: 9780742511262.

Buy at Amazon Geddes, B. Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780472068357.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon George, A., and A. Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, chapter 4. ISBN: 9780262572224.

5

Case studies

What is a case?

Value of case study research.

The problem of case selection

Comparative case method

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Van Evera, S. "What Are Case Studies? How Should They Be Performed?" In Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780801484575.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon George, A., and A. Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780262572224.

Buy at Amazon Geddes, B. "How the Cases you Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection Bias and Related Issues." In Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780472068357.

Lijphart, A. "Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method." American Political Science Review 65, no. 3 (1971): 682-93.

Locke, R., and K. Thelen. "Apples and Oranges Revisited: Contextualized Comparisons and the Study of Comparative Labor Politics." Politics & Society 23, no. 3 (1995): 337-367.

Recommended readings

Buy at Amazon Ragin, C., and H. Becker, eds. What is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1992. ISBN: 9780521421881.

Buy at Amazon Yin, R. K. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2002. ISBN: 9780761925538.

Gerring, J. "What Is a Case Study and What is it Good for?" American Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (2004): 341-354.

Collier, D., and J. Mahoney. "Insight and Pitfalls: Selection Bias in Qualitative Research." World Politics 49, no. 1 (1996): 56-91.

6

Interviews and documentary evidence

Interviews as social events

Issues of language and power

Using documentary evidence

Required readings

Weiner, M. "Political Interviewing." In Studying Politics Abroad. Edited by R. E. Ward. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1964. ASIN: B000HMHY6O.

Ewick, P., and S. Silbey. "Narrating Social Structure: Stories of Resistance to Legal Authority." American Journal of Sociology 108, no. 6 (2003): 1328-1372.

Buy at Amazon Scott, J. W. Gender and the Politics of History. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1999, chapter 6. ISBN: 9780231118576.

Buy at Amazon Nobles, M. Shades of Citizenship: Race and the Census in Modern Politics. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000, chapter 3. ISBN: 9780804740593.

Examples and recommended further readings

Buy at Amazon Tendler, J. Good Government in the Tropics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780801860928.

Buy at Amazon Rubin, H., and I. Rubin. Qualitative Interviewing: The Art of Hearing Data. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. ISBN: 9780761920755.

Leech, B. L. "Interview Methods in Political Science." American Political Science Association Symposium, 2002.

Buy at Amazon Denzin, N. K. "The Sociological Interview." In The Research Act: A Theoretical Introduction to Sociological Methods. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1988. ISBN: 9780137743810.

7

Participant observation

What is participant observation?

Thick description

Under what conditions is this approach feasible?

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Hammersley, M., and P. Atkinson. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London, UK: Routledge, 2007, chapters 1 and 2. ISBN: 9780415396059.

Buy at Amazon Geertz, C. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York, NY: Basic Books, chapters 1 and 15. ISBN: 9780465097197.

Buy at Amazon Scott, J. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987, chapter 6. ISBN: 9780300036411.

Recommended readings

Buy at Amazon Becker, H. Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You're Doing It. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226041247.

Buy at Amazon Garfinkle, H. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780745600055.

Buy at Amazon Sewell, W. H. "The Concept(s) of Culture." In Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture. Edited by V. Bonnell and L. Hunt. Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1999. ISBN: 9780520216792.

Wedeen, L. "Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities for Political Science." American Political Science Review 96, no. 4 (2002): 713-738.

Buy at Amazon Van Maanen, J. Tales of the Field. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1988. ISBN: 9780226849621.

Ethnographies

Becker, H. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York, NY: Free Press, 1963. ASIN: B0006AYFSW.

Buy at Amazon Whyte, W. F. Street Corner Society. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780226895451.

Buy at Amazon Scott, James C. The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1977. ISBN: 9780300021905.

8 Survey research

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Boyd, R. W., and H. H. Hyman. "Survey Research." In Handbook of Political Science. Vol. 7, Strategies of Inquiry. Edited by F. Greenstein and N. Polsby. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1975. ISBN: 9780201026016.

Buy at Amazon Freeman, R. B., and J. Rogers. What Workers Want. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006, chapters 2 and 3. ISBN: 9780801473258.

Examples and suggested additional readings

Buy at Amazon Frey, F. W. "Cross-Cultural Survey Research in Political Science." In The Methodology of Comparative Research. Edited by R. T. Holt and J. E. Turner. New York, NY: Free Press, 1970. ISBN: 9780029148501.

Buy at Amazon Weisberg, H. F., J. Krosnick, and B. D. Bowen. An Introduction to Survey Research, Polling, and Data Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996. ISBN: 9780803974029.

Buy at Amazon Almond, G., and S. Verba. The Civic Culture. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1989. ISBN: 9780803935587.

Buy at Amazon Verba, S., N. Nie, and J. Kim. Participation and Political Equality: A Seven Nation Comparison. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. ISBN: 9780226852980.

Buy at Amazon Fishkin, J. S. The Voice of the People. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780300072556.

Buy at Amazon Ingelhart, R. Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989. ISBN: 9780691022963.

Buy at Amazon Converse, P., and R. Pierce. Political Representation in France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986. ISBN: 9780674686601.

Buy at Amazon Smith, B., and R. Turner. "The Quality of Survey Research in Authoritarian Regimes: Brazil and the Southern Cone of Latin America in the 1970s." In Statistical Abstract of Latin America. Edited by J. Wilkie. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA, 1984. ISBN: 9780879032425.

Lewis, I. A., and William Schneider. "Is the Public Lying to the Pollsters?" Public Opinion (1982): 42-47.

Verba, S. "The Uses of Survey Research in the Study of Comparative Politics: Issues and Strategies." In Comparative Survey Analysis. Edited by Stein Rokkan, et al. The Hague, Mouton, 1969.

Scheuch, Erwin K. "The Cross-Cultural Use of Sample Surveys: Problems of Comparability." In Comparative Survey Analysis. Edited by Stein Rokkan, et al. The Hague, Mouton, 1969.

Stokes, S. C. "Politics and Latin America's Urban Poor: Reflections from a Lima Shantytown." Latin American Research Review 26, no. 2 (1991): 75-101.

Buy at Amazon Verba, S., K. Schlozman, and H. Brady. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780674942936.

9

Doing fieldwork

Gaining Access

Maintaining field notes

Ethics of fieldwork

Required readings

Buy at Amazon Rabinow, P. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2007, chapters 4-5. ISBN: 9780520251779.

Buy at Amazon Barrett, C., and J. W. Cason. Overseas Research: A Practical Guide. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1997, chapters 5-6. ISBN: 9780801855146.

Buy at Amazon Emerson, R., R. Fretz, and L. Shaw. "Processing Fieldnotes: Coding and Memoing." In Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780226206813.

Read, B., L. M. MacLean, and M. Cammett. "Symposium: Field Research: How Rich? How Thick? How Participatory?" Qualitative Methods 4, no. 2 (2006): 9-18.

Piore, M. "Qualitative Research: Does it Fit in Economics?" European Management Review 3 (2006): 17-23.

Recommended readings

Aberbach, J., et al. "Exploring Elite Political Attitudes: Some Methodological Lessons." Political Methodology 2 (1975): 1-27.

10-12 Research proposal presentations

Required readings

Przeworski, A., and F. Salomon. "On the Art of Writing Proposals: Some Candid Suggestions for Applicants to Social Science Research Council Competitions." 1988.

 

Students may find the following texts useful:

Buy at Amazon Abbott, A. Methods of Discovery: Heuristics for the Social Sciences. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2004. ISBN: 9780393978148.

Buy at Amazon Mills, C. W. "On Intellectual Craftmanship." In The Sociological Imagination. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN: 9780195133738.

Buy at Amazon King, G., R. Keohane, and S. Verba. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780691034713.

Buy at Amazon Brady, H., and D. Collier, eds. Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004. ISBN: 9780742511262.

Buy at Amazon Van Evera, S. Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997, pp. 49-76. ISBN: 9780801484575.

Buy at Amazon Kuhn, T. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996. ISBN: 9780226458083.

Buy at Amazon Becker, H. Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You're Doing It. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780226041247.

Buy at Amazon Freeman, R. B., and J. Rogers. What Workers Want. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006, chapters 2 and 3. ISBN: 9780801473258.

Buy at Amazon Geddes, B. Paradigms and Sand Castles: Theory Building and Research Design in Comparative Politics. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780472068357.

Buy at Amazon Shapiro, I., R. M. Smith, and T. E. Masoud, eds. Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780521539432.