Courses:

Qualitative Research: Design and Methods >> Content Detail



Study Materials



Readings

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SES #TOPICSREADINGS
1

Introduction and course rationale


Course overview and rationale

Why qualitative research?



Required readings


Amazon logo 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


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

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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


Amazon logo 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.

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



Recommended readings


Amazon logo 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


Amazon logo 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.

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

Amazon logo 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.

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



Recommended readings


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

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

Amazon logo 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


Amazon logo 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.

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

Amazon logo 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


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

Amazon logo 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.

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

Amazon logo 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


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

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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


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

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

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



Recommended readings


Amazon logo 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.

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

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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.

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

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

8Survey research

Required readings


Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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


Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Amazon logo 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.

Amazon logo 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


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

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

Amazon logo 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.

10-12Research 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:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amazon logo 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.

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

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

Amazon logo 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.


 








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