Empirical Political Analysis: Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methods, 7th Edition

This comprehensive research methods text introduces students, both concretely and theoretically, to a wide variety of techniques, applications, and concerns that are important to political science research.

 

Organized around the various stages of the research process, and balancing the competing demands placed on an introductory text, each chapter of the book is planned around a series of substantive questions and enhanced with a series of research exercises that give students practical insights into the important issues raised.

Part I: Introduction.

 

1. The Research Process.

 

Part II: Preparing to Do Research.

 

2. Theory Building: Concepts and Hypotheses in Political Research.

 

3. Setting the Foundation: Techniques of Systematic Bibliographic Search.

 

4. Internet Research.

 

5. From Abstract to Concrete: Operationalization and Measurement.

 

6. Working from a Plan: Considerations in Research Design.

 

7. Who, What, Where, When: The Problem of Sampling.

 

Part III: Quantitative Methods.

 

8. Survey Research.

 

9. Scaling Techniques.

 

10. Content Analysis.

 

11. Sources and Applications of Aggregate Data.

 

12. Comparative Research.

 

13. Social Network Analysis: Finding Structure in a Complex World.

 

Part IV: Analyzing Quantitative Data.

 

14. Data Preparation and Data Processing.

 

15. Describing the Data: The Construction of Tables and Charts.

 

16. Statistics I: Summarizing Distributions on One Variable.

 

17. Statistics II: Examining Relationships Between Two Variables.

 

18. Statistics III: Examining Relationships Among Several Variables.

 

Part IV: Qualitative Methods.

 

19. Direct Observation.

 

20. Focus Group Methodologies.

 

21. Elite and Specialized Interviewing.

 

Part V: Conclusion.

 

22. Writing (and Reading) the Research Report. 

 

23. Overview.