Download or read book Thinking Like a Political Scientist written by Christopher Howard and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A compelling case for transforming how research methods are taught to undergraduate students of political science.” —London School of Economics Review of Books Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Most of the standard books on research methods fail to highlight the most important concepts and questions. Instead, they brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis, slighting other valuable methods. This approach prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and meaningfully with a wide variety of research. With wit and practical wisdom, Christopher Howard draws on more than a decade of experience teaching research methods to transform a typically dreary subject and teach budding political scientists the critical skills they need to read published research more effectively and produce better research of their own. The first part of the book is devoted to asking three fundamental questions in political science: What happened? Why? Who cares? In the second section, Howard demonstrates how to answer these questions by choosing an appropriate research design, selecting cases, and working with numbers and written documents as evidence. Drawing on examples from American and comparative politics, international relations, and public policy, Thinking Like a Political Scientist highlights the most common challenges that political scientists routinely face, and each chapter concludes with exercises so that students can practice dealing with those challenges.

Download or read book When Movements Anchor Parties written by Daniel Schlozman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout American history, some social movements, such as organized labor and the Christian Right, have forged influential alliances with political parties, while others, such as the antiwar movement, have not. When Movements Anchor Parties provides a bold new interpretation of American electoral history by examining five prominent movements and their relationships with political parties. Taking readers from the Civil War to today, Daniel Schlozman shows how two powerful alliances—those of organized labor and Democrats in the New Deal, and the Christian Right and Republicans since the 1970s—have defined the basic priorities of parties and shaped the available alternatives in national politics. He traces how they diverged sharply from three other major social movements that failed to establish a place inside political parties—the abolitionists following the Civil War, the Populists in the 1890s, and the antiwar movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Moving beyond a view of political parties simply as collections of groups vying for preeminence, Schlozman explores how would-be influencers gain influence—or do not. He reveals how movements join with parties only when the alliance is beneficial to parties, and how alliance exacts a high price from movements. Their sweeping visions give way to compromise and partial victories. Yet as Schlozman demonstrates, it is well worth paying the price as movements reorient parties' priorities. Timely and compelling, When Movements Anchor Parties demonstrates how alliances have transformed American political parties.

Download or read book American Political Scientists written by Glenn H. Utter and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark dictionary offers the only comprehensive collection of profiles of political scientists who have made significant contributions to the intellectual development of American political science.

Download or read book Game Theory for Political Scientists written by James D. Morrow and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Game theory is the mathematical analysis of strategic interaction. In the fifty years since the appearance of von Neumann and Morgenstern's classic Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton, 1944), game theory has been widely applied to problems in economics. Until recently, however, its usefulness in political science has been underappreciated, in part because of the technical difficulty of the methods developed by economists. James Morrow's book is the first to provide a standard text adapting contemporary game theory to political analysis. It uses a minimum of mathematics to teach the essentials of game theory and contains problems and their solutions suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in all branches of political science. Morrow begins with classical utility and game theory and ends with current research on repeated games and games of incomplete information. The book focuses on noncooperative game theory and its application to international relations, political economy, and American and comparative politics. Special attention is given to models of four topics: bargaining, legislative voting rules, voting in mass elections, and deterrence. An appendix reviews relevant mathematical techniques. Brief bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter suggest further readings, graded according to difficulty. This rigorous but accessible introduction to game theory will be of use not only to political scientists but also to psychologists, sociologists, and others in the social sciences.

Download or read book Pride Not Prejudice written by Eunbin Chung and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2022-02-28 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As shown by China’s relationship to Japan, and Japan’s relationship to South Korea, even growing regional economic interdependencies are not enough to overcome bitter memories grounded in earlier wars, invasions, and periods of colonial domination. Although efforts to ease historical animosity have been made, few have proven to be successful in Northeast Asia. In previous research scholars anticipated an improvement in relations through thick economic interdependence or increased societal contact. In economic terms, however, Japan and China already trade heavily: Japan has emerged as China’s largest trading partner and China as second largest to Japan. Societal contact is already intense, as millions of Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese visit one another’s countries annually as students, tourists, and on business trips. But these developments have not alleviated international distrust and negative perception, or resolved disagreement on what constitutes “adequate reparation” regarding the countries’ painful history. Noticing clashes of strong nationalisms around the world in areas like Northeast Asia, numerous studies have suggested that more peaceful relations are likely only if countries submerge or paper over existing national identities by promoting universalism. Pride, Not Prejudice argues, to the contrary, that affirmation of national identities may be a more effective way to build international cooperation. If each national population reflects on the values of their national identity, trust and positive perception can increase between countries. This idea is consistent with the theoretical foundation that those who have a clear, secure, and content sense of self, in turn, can be more open, evenhanded, and less defensive toward others. In addition, this reduced defensiveness also enhances guilt admission by past “inflictors” of conflict and colonialism. Eunbin Chung borrows the social psychological theory of self-affirmation and applies it to an international context to argue that affirmation of a national identity, or reflecting on what it means to be part of one’s country, can increase trust, guilt recognition, and positive perception between countries.

Download or read book The Relevance of Political Science written by Gerry Stoker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-03-26 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does political science tell us about important real-world problems and issues? And to what extent does and can political analysis contribute to solutions? Debates about the funding, impact and relevance of political science in contemporary democracies have made this a vital and hotly contested topic of discussion, and in this original text authors from around the world respond to the challenge. A robust defence is offered of the achievements of political science research, but the book is not overly sanguine given its sustained recognition of the need for improvement in the way that political science is done. New insights are provided into the general issues raised by relevance, into blockages to relevance, and into the contributions that the different subfields of political science can and do make. The book concludes with a new manifesto for relevance that seeks to combine a commitment to rigour with a commitment to engagement.

Download or read book Political Science written by William J. Crotty and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 1991 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this volume, the study of legislatures has traditionally been a central preoccupation of political scientists. Legislatures provide good laboratories for testing theories and methodologies of significance in the discipline and, more broadly, for contributing to an understanding of how representative government works.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Political Science written by Robert E. Goodin and published by Oxford Handbooks of Political. This book was released on 2009-06-18 with total page 1310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on the rich resources of the ten-volume series of The Oxford Handbooks of Political Science, this one-volume distillation provides a comprehensive overview of all the main branches of contemporary political science: political theory; political institutions; political behavior; comparative politics; international relations; political economy; law and politics; public policy; contextual political analysis; and political methodology. Sixty-seven of the top politicalscientists worldwide survey recent developments in those fields and provide penetrating introductions to exciting new fields of study. Following in the footsteps of the New Handbook of Political Science edited by Robert Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann a decade before, this Oxford Handbook will become anindispensable guide to the scope and methods of political science as a whole. It will serve as the reference book of record for political scientists and for those following their work for years to come.

Download or read book Quantitative Social Science written by Kosuke Imai and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-03-16 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Princeton University Press published Imai's textbook, Quantitative Social Science: An Introduction, an introduction to quantitative methods and data science for upper level undergrads and graduates in professional programs, in February 2017. What is distinct about the book is how it leads students through a series of applied examples of statistical methods, drawing on real examples from social science research. The original book was prepared with the statistical software R, which is freely available online and has gained in popularity in recent years. But many existing courses in statistics and data sciences, particularly in some subject areas like sociology and law, use STATA, another general purpose package that has been the market leader since the 1980s. We've had several requests for STATA versions of the text as many programs use it by default. This is a "translation" of the original text, keeping all the current pedagogical text but inserting the necessary code and outputs from STATA in their place"--

Download or read book Party Images in the American Electorate written by Mark D. Brewer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-04-02 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Party affiliation has long been the driving force behind electoral politics in the United States. Despite this fact, scant attention has been devoted to the American electorate’s party images—the "mental pictures" that individuals have about the parties which enable citizens to translate events in the larger political environment into terms meaningful to them as individuals. Party images are central to understanding individuals’ political perceptions and, ultimately, voting behavior. Party Images in the American Electorate systematically examines the substance, evolution, and manipulation of party images within the American public over the last half century, both within the public as a whole and within important subgroups based on class, race and ethnicity, sex, and religiosity. Ultimately, this important book investigates how these party images are tied into the story of party polarization and how they affect electoral outcomes in the United States.

Download or read book A Model Discipline written by Kevin A. Clarke and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political scientists use models to investigate and illuminate causal mechanisms, generate comparative data, and more. But how do we justify and rationalize the method? Why test predictions from a deductive, and thus truth-preserving, system? Primo and Clarke tackle these central questions in this novel work of methodology.

Download or read book Independent Politics written by Samara Klar and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-19 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The number of independent voters in America increases each year, yet they remain misunderstood by both media and academics. Media describe independents as pivotal for electoral outcomes. Political scientists conclude that independents are merely 'undercover partisans': people who secretly hold partisan beliefs and are thus politically inconsequential. Both the pundits and the political scientists are wrong, argue the authors. They show that many Americans are becoming embarrassed of their political party. They deny to pollsters, party activists, friends, and even themselves, their true partisanship, instead choosing to go 'undercover' as independents. Independent Politics demonstrates that people intentionally mask their partisan preferences in social situations. Most importantly, breaking with decades of previous research, it argues that independents are highly politically consequential. The same motivations that lead people to identify as independent also diminish their willingness to engage in the types of political action that sustain the grassroots movements of American politics.

Download or read book Popular Images of Politics a Taxonomy written by Dan D. Nimmo and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 1974 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Political Science Research Methods in Action written by M. Bruter and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-07-23 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through accounts from innovative research projects by world-leading political scientists, this volume offers a unique perspective on research methodology. It discusses the practical and intellectual dilemmas researchers face throughout the research process in a wide range of fields from implicit attitude testing to media analysis and interviews.

Download or read book African American Perspectives on Political Science written by Wilbur Rich and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-15 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race matters in both national and international politics. Starting from this perspective, African American Perspectives on Political Science presents original essays from leading African American political scientists. Collectively, they evaluate the discipline, its subfields, the quality of race-related research, and omissions in the literature. They argue that because Americans do not fully understand the many-faceted issues of race in politics in their own country, they find it difficult to comprehend ethnic and racial disputes in other countries as well. In addition, partly because there are so few African Americans in the field, political science faces a danger of unconscious insularity in methodology and outlook. Contributors argue that the discipline needs multiple perspectives to prevent it from developing blind spots. Taken as a whole, these essays argue with great urgency that African American political scientists have a unique opportunity and a special responsibility to rethink the canon, the norms, and the directions of the discipline.

Download or read book Politics and the Media written by M. J. Clark and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2014-05-18 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Politics and the Media: Film and Television for the Political Scientist and Historian focuses on the use of film and television in the study of history and political science. Television-based history teaching in the context of the traditional university is discussed, along with the impact of broadcasting in democratic politics and the possibilities of using film in courses on American government and politics. This book is comprised of 14 chapters and begins with an analysis of some of the ramifying problems of media production in the political field, paying particular attention to the priorities and constraints within which the political message has been conceived, stored, and transmitted. The experience of the BBC in the presentation of political and current affairs on television is highlighted. Attention turns to problems associated with availability of material; the political content of broadcasting; and Hollywood feature films as social and political evidence. Subsequent chapters explore film as a teaching resource; the structural approach to film analysis; broadcast television archives; and audiovisual sources and research into modern British politics. The final chapter presents an annotated list of some European film collections. This monograph will be of value to political scientists, historians, teachers, students, researchers, and the general public interested in broadcast media.

Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Political Science written by Dirk Berg-Schlosser and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 2445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The SAGE Handbook of Political Science presents a major retrospective and prospective overview of the discipline. Comprising three volumes of contributions from expert authors from around the world, the handbook aims to frame, assess and synthesize research in the field, helping to define and identify its current and future developments. It does so from a truly global and cross-area perspective Chapters cover a broad range of aspects, from providing a general introduction to exploring important subfields within the discipline. Each chapter is designed to provide a state-of-the-art and comprehensive overview of the topic by incorporating cross-cutting global, interdisciplinary, and, where this applies, gender perspectives. The Handbook is arranged over seven core thematic sections: Part 1: Political Theory Part 2: Methods Part 3: Political Sociology Part 4: Comparative Politics Part 5: Public Policies and Administration Part 6: International Relations Part 7: Major Challenges for Politics and Political Science in the 21st Century