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Understanding Political Science Research Methods: The Challenge of Inference
by Maryann Barakso Brian Schaffner Daniel M. SabetThis text starts by explaining the fundamental goal of good political science research--the ability to answer interesting and important questions by generating valid inferences about political phenomena. Before the text even discusses the process of developing a research question, the authors introduce the reader to what it means to make an inference and the different challenges that social scientists face when confronting this task. Only with this ultimate goal in mind will students be able to ask appropriate questions, conduct fruitful literature reviews, select and execute the proper research design, and critically evaluate the work of others. The authors' primary goal is to teach students to critically evaluate their own research designs and others' and analyze the extent to which they overcome the classic challenges to making inference: internal and external validity concerns, omitted variable bias, endogeneity, measurement, sampling, and case selection errors, and poor research questions or theory. As such, students will not only be better able to conduct political science research, but they will also be more savvy consumers of the constant flow of causal assertions that they confront in scholarship, in the media, and in conversations with others. Three themes run through Barakso, Sabet, and Schaffner's text: minimizing classic research problems to making valid inferences, effective presentation of research results, and the nonlinear nature of the research process. Throughout their academic years and later in their professional careers, students will need to effectively convey various bits of information. Presentation skills gleaned from this text will benefit students for a lifetime, whether they continue in academia or in a professional career. Several distinctive features make this book noteworthy: A common set of examples threaded throughout the text give students a common ground across chapters and expose them to a broad range of subfields in the discipline. Box features throughout the book illustrate the nonlinear, "non-textbook" reality of research, demonstrate the often false inferences and poor social science in the way the popular press covers politics, and encourage students to think about ethical issues at various stages of the research process. A companion website that gives students additional opportunities to fine tune their understanding of the book's material.
Understanding Political Science Statistics using SPSS: A Manual with Exercises
by Peter GalderisiThis manual walks students through the procedures for analysis in SPSS and provides exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets. The manual complements the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis, by Peter Galderisi, making it easy to use alongside the book in a course or as a stand-alone guide to using SPSS. Galderisi demonstrates how to use both syntax and GUI driven formats and shows sample results of the analyses. Filled with annotated screenshots from SPSS version 22 (but compatible with all versions, including the student version), the students will be guided through standard processes replete with examples and exercises to ready them for future work in political science research. The diverse group of data sets provided include subsamples of both the 2008 and 2012 American National Election Studies, a Eurobarometer survey, single year and longitudinal congressional district files, the 2012 Comparative Congressional Election Study data set, and a comparative, crossnational country file. Versions with reduced case numbers and variables are also included that are compatible with the student version.This manual (and a parallel Stata manual) are available as stand-alone products or packaged with the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics.
Understanding Political Science Statistics using Stata: A Manual with Exercises
by Ellen SeljanThis manual walks students through the procedures for analysis in Stata and provides exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets. The manual complements the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis, by Peter Galderisi, making it easy to use alongside the book in a course or as a stand-alone guide to using Stata. Seljan demonstrates how to run commands in Stata for different kinds of research questions and shows the results of the analyses, using lots of annotated screenshots from Stata version 12 (but compatible with all versions, including Stata Small). Students will be guided through standard processes replete with examples and exercises to ready them for future work in political science research. The diverse group of data sets provided include subsamples of both the 2008 and 2012 American National Election Studies, a Eurobarometer survey, single year and longitudinal congressional district files, the 2012 Comparative Congressional Election Study, and a comparative, crossnational country file. Versions with reduced case numbers and variables are also included that are compatible with Stata Small.This manual (and a parallel SPSS manual) are available as stand-alone products or packaged with the textbook Understanding Political Science Statistics.
Understanding Political Science Statistics: Observations and Expectations in Political Analysis
by Peter GalderisiIn politics, you begin by asking theoretically interesting questions. Sometimes statistics can help answer those questions. When it comes to applied statistics, students shouldn’t just learn a vast array of formula—they need to learn the basic concepts of statistics as solutions to particular problems. Peter Galderisi demonstrates that statistics are a summary of how to answer the problem: learn the math but only after learning the concepts and methodological considerations that give it context. With this as a starting point, Understanding Political Science Statistics asks students to consider how to address a research problem conceptually before being led to the appropriate formula. Throughout, Galderisi looks at problems through a lens of "observations and expectations," which can be applied to myriad statistical techniques, both descriptive and inferential. This approach links the answers researchers get from their individual data analysis to the research designs and questions from which these analyses are derived. By emphasizing the underlying logic of statistical analysis for greater understanding and drawing on applications and examples from political science (including law), the book illustrates how students can apply statistical concepts and techniques in their own research, in future coursework, and simply as an informed consumer of numbers in public discourse. The following features help students master the material: Legal and Methodological sidebars highlight key concepts and provide applied examples on law, politics, and methodology; End-of-chapter exercises allow students to test their mastery of the basic concepts and techniques along the way; A Sample Solutions Guide provides worked-out answers for odd-numbered exercises, with all answers available in the Instructor’s Manual; Key Terms are helpfully called out in both Marginal Definitions and a Glossary; A Companion Website (www.routledge.com/cw/galderisi) with further resources for both students and instructors; A diverse array of data sets include subsets of the ANES and Eurobarometer surveys; CCES; US Congressional district data; and a cross-national dataset with political, economic, and demographic variables; and Companion guides to SPSS and Stata walk students through the procedures for analysis and provide exercises that go hand-in-hand with online data sets.
Understanding Politics and Society
by Fabio de NardisThis textbook presents political sociology as a connective social science that studies political phenomena by creating fruitful connections with other perspectives. The relationship between politics and society is more complex than ever due to the emergence of new power structures, forms of conflict organization and management, and social practices of political participation. Several scholars describe this historical phase as the 'de-politicization of representative politics'. The book addresses classical themes of and approaches to political sociology, but also dedicates several chapters to contemporary developments within political sociology, including, for instance, the role of the internet and bottom-up political communication in social movements. In addition, the volume acts as a professional tool for those scholars and researchers that are beginning to study political processes from a sociological perspective.
Understanding Popular Culture and World Politics in the Digital Age (Popular Culture and World Politics)
by Caitlin Hamilton and Laura J. ShepherdThe practices of world politics are now scrutinised in a way that is unprecedented, with even those previously – or conventionally assumed to be – disengaged from international affairs being drawn into world politics by social media. Interactive websites allow users to follow election results in real-time from the other side of the world, and online mapping means that the world ‘out there’ is now available on your mobile phone. Understanding Popular Culture and World Politics in the Digital Age engages these themes in contemporary world politics, to better understand how digital communication through new media technologies changes our encounters with the world. Whether the focus is digital media, social networking or user-generated content, these sites of political activity and the artefacts they produce have much to tell us about how we engage world politics in the contemporary age. This volume represents the starting point of a dialogue about how digital technologies are beginning to impact the research and practice of scholars and practitioners in the field of International Relations, with the collection of cutting-edge essays dealing specifically with the intertextuality of world politics and digital popular culture. This book will be of use to International Relations research academics (and critically engaged publics) interested in the core themes of global politics – subjectivity, militarism, humanitarianism, civil society organisation, and governance. The book also employs theories and techniques closely associated with other social science disciplines, including political theory, sociology, cultural studies and media studies.
Understanding Populist Party Organisation
by Reinhard Heinisch Oscar MazzoleniRight-wing populist parties are thriving throughout Europe. With few exceptions, political systems have seen such parties make significant electoral gains and shape the national political discourse across the continent. In recent years, many populist parties have undergone leadership changes and other evolutionary challenges to which they adapted well, often contrary to expectations. This timely collection is devoted to understanding how Western European right-wing populist parties organize themselves. Without understanding the role of the organizational dynamics, we fail to understand how populist parties adapt over time and thus endure. Providing a systematic and comprehensive analysis of organizational issues of populist parties over time, Understanding Populist Party Organisation explores a range of political parties in Western Europe, examining their internal dynamics and questioning whether it is possible to discern or construct a general "populist" party typology of organization and representation. The book includes chapters on the Austrian Freedom Party, the Vlaams Belang, the Swiss People's Party, the Lega Nord, the Front National, the Norwegian Progress Party, and the Sweden Democrats.
Understanding Post-Communist Transformation: A Bottom Up Approach
by Richard RoseThe fall of the Berlin Wall launched the transformation of government, economy and society across half of Europe and the former Soviet Union. This text deals with the process of change in former Communist bloc countries, ten of which have become new European Union (EU) democracies while Russia and her neighbours remain burdened by their Soviet legacy. Drawing on more than a hundred public opinion surveys from the New Europe Barometer, the text compares how ordinary people have coped with the stresses and opportunities of transforming Communist societies into post-Communist societies and the resulting differences between peoples in the new EU member states and Russia. Subjects covered by Understanding Post-Communist Transformation include: Stresses and opportunities of economic transformation Social capital and the development of civil society Elections and the complexities of party politics The challenges for the EU of raising standards of democratic governance Differences between Russia’s and the West’s interpretation of political life Written by one of the world's most renowned authorities on this subject, this text is ideal for courses on transition, post-communism, democratization and Russian and Eastern European history and politics.
Understanding Power
by Noam Chomsky John SchoeffelNoam Chomsky is universally accepted as one of the preeminent public intellectuals of the modern era. Over the past thirty years, broadly diverse audiences have gathered to attend his sold-out lectures. Now, in Understanding Power, Peter Mitchell and John Schoeffel have assembled the best of Chomsky's recent talks on the past, present, and future of the politics of power.In a series of enlightening and wide-ranging discussions, all published here for the first time, Chomsky radically reinterprets the events of the past three decades, covering topics from foreign policy during Vietnam to the decline of welfare under the Clinton administration. And as he elucidates the connection between America's imperialistic foreign policy and the decline of domestic social services, Chomsky also discerns the necessary steps to take toward social change. With an eye to political activism and the media's role in popular struggle, as well as U.S. foreign and domestic policy, Understanding Power offers a sweeping critique of the world around us and is definitive Chomsky.Characterized by Chomsky's accessible and informative style, this is the ideal book for those new to his work as well as for those who have been listening for years.
Understanding Power: An Imperative For Human Services
by Elaine PinderhughesUnderstanding Power: An Imperative for Human Services presents basic concepts explaining the multilevel, bidirectional, and recursive operation of power, its effects, and the thinking needed for effective intervention. This resource offers an opportunity to work toward building a metaview from which to address how power operates when it is just and to discover its potential for healing and helping people to find, discover, reclaim, or enhance their own power.
Understanding Program Evaluation, Sage Human Services Guides, Volume 31
by Leonard Rutman George Mowbray"This is an interesting monograph and one which should be useful for the intended audience of program managers and students . . . particularly in respect to the emphasis placed on the utilization of evaluation information for management purposes and the need to tailor evaluations to meet this primary purpose." --Canadian Evaluation Society Newsletter
Understanding Protest Diffusion: The Case of the Egyptian Uprising of 2011
by Arne F. WackenhutThis book traces the mobilization process leading up to the January 25 Uprising, and furthers our understanding of the largely unexpected diffusion of protest during this Egyptian Revolution. Focusing on the role of the so-called “Cairo-based political opposition,” this study strongly suggests a need to pay closer attention to the complexity and contingent nature of such large-scale protest episodes. Building on interviews with activists, employees of NGOs in the human rights advocacy sector, and journalists, this in-depth single case study reveals how different movement organizations in the Egyptian prodemocracy movement had long, and largely unsuccessfully, tried to mobilize support for socio-political change in the country. Against this backdrop, the book illustrates how a coalition of activists sought to organize a protest event against police brutality in early 2011. The resulting protests on January 25 surprised not only the regime of Hosni Mubarak, but also the organizers.
Understanding Proto-Insurgencies
by Daniel BymanThis study examines how terrorist groups transition to insurgencies and identifies ways to combat proto-insurgents. It describes the steps groups must take to gain the size and capabilities of insurgencies, the role of outside state support, and actions governments can take to prevent potential insurgencies from blossoming. The most effective U.S. counterinsurgency action would be to anticipate the possibility of insurgencies developing; it could then provide training and advisory programs and inhibit outsides support.
Understanding Public Management
by Kjell A Eliassen Nick Sitter'A broad-ranging and highly intelligent account of key recent developments internationally which skillfully updates the public management and governance literatures' - Ewan Ferlie, Royal Holloway 'Public management has been radically changed and reformed... this book gives students a fine introduction to these changes and to the theories dealing with them' - Jørgen Grønnegaard Christensen, University of Aarhus An introduction and guide to the dramatic changes that have occurred in the provision of public services over the last two decades, this book combines theoretical perspectives with a range of case studies from Europe, North America and further afield to explain why, how and with what success liberal democracies have reformed the service role of the state. The book pays close attention to four major dimensions of this transition: " External challenges and opportunties: globalisation and EU integration " Reducing the role of the state: Liberalisation, privatisation, regulation and competition policy " Improving the role of the state: New Public Management, e-Government and beyond " Managing the New Public Sector: organisations, strategy and leadership This text is designed for undergraduate courses in public governance, but it also addresses the core components of MPA programmes - the parameters, tools, principles and theories of public sector reform.
Understanding Public Opinion
by Clyde Wilcox Barbara NorranderClick here to preview a sample chapter!In this highly anticipated revision, editors Barbara Norrander and Clyde Wilcox expose students to the substance and process of public opinion research in an accessible way. Capturing the diversity of this research with 12 essays—10 new to this edition and 2 fully updated—well-respected contributors highlight the many approaches social scientists use to explore public opinion while citing actual research and teasing out the political implications of their findings.Understanding Public Opinion expands on important ideas that basic textbooks cover only briefly, such as public views of those on trial for terrorist acts, public attitudes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the rise and fall of public support for George W. Bush. Part introductions provide important thematic context, and a statistics primer in the appendix offers students a handy reference. More relevant and thought-provoking than ever, Understanding Public Opinion is the ideal supplement for any public opinion course.
Understanding Public Opinion Polls
by Jelke BethlehemPolls are conducted every day all around the world for almost everything (especially during elections). But not every poll is a good one. A lot depends on the type of questions asked, how they are asked and whether the sample used is truly representative. And these are not the only aspects of a poll that should be checked. So how does one separate the chaff from the wheat? That’s where Understanding Public Opinion Polls comes in. Written by a well-known author with over thirty years of experience, the book is built around a checklist for polls that describes the various aspects of polls to pay attention to if one intends to use its results. By comprehensively answering the questions in the checklist, a good idea of the quality of the poll is obtained. Features: Provides readers with a deeper understanding of practical and theoretical aspects of opinion polls while assuming no background in mathematics or statistics Shows how to determine if a poll is good or bad Provides a historical perspective and includes examples from real polls Gives special attention to online and election polls The book gives an overview of many aspects of polls – questionnaire design, sample selection, estimation, margins of error, nonresponse and weighting. It is essential reading for those who want to gain a better understanding of the ins and outs of polling including those who are confronted with polls in their daily life or work or those who need to learn how to conduct their own polls.
Understanding Public Policy
by Thomas R. DyeThis edition provides students with a close up look at the American healthcare system, current economic policies, issues of homeland security and defense policy among many other current event and issues shaping public policy today. The gold-standard for introductory public policy texts, Understanding Public Policy is designed to provide readers with concrete tools for both understanding and analyzing public policy.
Understanding Public Services: A Contemporary Introduction
by E.K. Sarter and Elizabeth Cookingham BaileyDive inside this textbook for an accessible guide to the discipline of public services. Perfect for students, it offers a comprehensive account of core public service topics and explains the fundamental elements of working in the public services. Outlining their role in the welfare state, it explores the policies, providers and legalities shaping the context in which public services operate. Students will study concepts of organisational change, strategy, management, leadership and funding, and engage with timely discussions around contemporary public issues such as equality, sustainability and climate change. Key features to support student learning include: • objectives at the beginning of each chapter; • case studies and examples; • end of chapter summaries; • reflective questions; • further reading recommendations and resources. Bringing together authors with expertise in politics and public policy, social policy and law, this book is essential reading for everybody studying public services.
Understanding Public Speaking: A Learner's Guide to Persuasive Oratory
by Braj MohanPublic speaking is a much coveted yet difficult art. This book illustrates the use of various linguistic devices and persuasive strategies with examples from the speeches of powerful orators in history. It systematically draws on the various approaches to public speaking and persuasive discourse to present new insights and techniques. The volume: Critically examines strategies of persuasive oratory. Draws on extensive investigation of a corpus of famous public speeches in history. Focuses on the needs of those who want to brush up their public speaking skills. The volume will be a key reference for aspiring civil servants, lawyers, business and corporate professionals, and politicians. It will be of great interest to scholars of linguistics, and political and business communication.
Understanding Quality Peace: Peacebuilding after Civil War (Routledge Studies in Security and Conflict Management)
by Peter Wallensteen Madhav JoshiThis book provides an analytical framework for understanding how the concept of quality peace can be used to evaluate post-conflict peacebuilding, using social science, statistics, and case studies. Including contributions from more than 20 researchers and practitioners, it argues that the quality of the peace in a post-conflict state relates to the extent to which peace accords are implemented, the agreed-upon mechanism for the non-violent resolution of the conflict, and the available social space for civil and political actors. To arrive at the concept of 'quality peace', the authors evaluate the existing literature and identify a lack of a satisfactory means of measuring outcomes, and consequently how these might be researched comparatively. The volume problematizes the 'quality peace' concept as a way to understand the origins of armed conflict as well as problems deriving from the conflict dynamics and the need for social, political, and economic changes in the post-conflict periods. The book emphasizes five dimensions as crucial for quality peace in a post-accord society. Negotiations and agreements not only aim at avoiding the return of war but also seek to: (1) promote reconciliation, (2) develop mechanisms for resolving future disputes, (3) provide for reliable security, (4) open economic opportunities for marginalized segments of the population, and (5) generate space for civil society. These five dimensions together provide for quality peace after war. They are studied in the context of internal armed conflicts in which multiple parties have signed a peace agreement. This book will be of great interest to students of peace and conflict studies, civil wars, global governance, security studies, and International Relations in general.
Understanding Racist Activism: Theory, Methods, and Research (Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right)
by Kathleen M. BleeWhite supremacist groups are highly secretive, so their public propaganda tells us little about their operations or the people they attract. To understand the world of organized racism it is necessary to study it from the inside by talking to their members and observing their groups. Doing so reveals a disturbing picture of how fairly ordinary white people learn to embrace the vicious ideas and dangerous agendas of white supremacism. This book takes the reader inside organized racism, revealing the kind of women and men who join groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazi skinheads, and what they do in those groups. The volume collects significant published works from renowned scholar Kathleen M. Blee's work on racist activism, alongside new essays on the theories, methods, and approaches of studying racist activism. Discussing topics such as emotional issues in research, the place of violence and hate in white supremacism, and how women are involved in racial terrorism, Blee makes use of a range of sources, including oral histories, ethnographic observations, and interviews, to shape her findings. Written by the pioneer and leading scholar of women in racist activism, this volume is essential reading for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the areas of social movements, politics, race studies, and American history.
Understanding Recruitment to Organized Crime and Terrorism
by David Weisburd Francesco Calderoni Badi Hasisi Ernesto U. SavonaThis volume provides insights on how recruitment patterns develop for two related types of criminal networks: organized crime and terrorism. It specifically explores the social, situational, psychological, and economic drivers of recruitment. Although organized crime networks and terrorism networks can differ in underlying goals and motivations, this volume demonstrates common drivers in their recruitment, which will provide insights for crime prevention and intervention. The goal of the book is to explore the current knowledge about these common drivers, as well as highlight emerging research, to identify and prioritize a research agenda for scholars, as well as policymakers. The research presented in this work aims to fill existing gaps in the knowledge of recruitment to both organized crime and terrorism. For each area, it provides a systematic review of the existing research on social, psychological, and economic drivers of recruitment. It then presents findings from independent original research aimed to explore new ground not covered in these previous studies. The contributions to this volume were the result of a research project funded by a European Union Horizon 2020 grant, and present a diverse, international mix of expertise and cases. It will be of interest to researchers in criminology and criminal justice, as well as related fields such as sociology, psychology, and international relations. Chapter 13 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Understanding Religion and Social Change in Ethiopia
by Mohammed GirmaReligiosity is one aspect without which Ethiopian society cannot be fully understood. This book aims to map out the terrain of the discourse in religion-social change nexus in Ethiopian using the notion of covenant as an interpretive tool.
Understanding Religious Violence: Radicalism and Terrorism in Religion Explored via Six Case Studies
by James Dingley Marcello MollicaThis book addresses the problem of religiously based conflict and violence via six case studies. It stresses particularly the structural and relational aspects of religion as providing a sense of order and a networked structure that enables people to pursue quite prosaic and earthly concerns. The book examines how such concerns link material and spiritual salvation into a holy alliance. As such, whilst the religions concerned may be different, they address the same problems and provide similar explanations for meaning, success, and failure in life. Each author has conducted their own field-work in the religiously based conflict regions they discuss, and together the collection offers perspectives from a variety of different national backgrounds and disciplines.
Understanding Religious Violence: Thinking Outside the Box on Terrorism
by J.P. LarssonThere is a long-standing fear of that which is not understood. Since September 11, 2001 the fear surrounding the violent elements of religion has led to heightened tensions. Research is thus essential to counteract the effects of 'religious xenophobia'. In this compelling book J.P. Larsson investigates religious violence, terrorism and armed conflict in order to deliver the understanding required for a more peaceful world and to allow for a framework of conflict transformation. This multi-disciplinary text will greatly interest those in the fields of international relations, theology and sociology.