For the Political Science course (Politics of Global Challenges BA Programme)

VU TSPMI II kurso studentams

For the Political Science course (Politics of Global Challenges BA Programme)

Guidelines for the written assignment

Essential requirements

• The research must use a comparative approach to analyse political phenomena. Compare two or more cases (such as states) or focus on a single case study.
• If selecting a single case study, establish a clear basis for comparison within the case, such as comparing two regions within the same state (spatial) or comparing two periods in the state’s history (temporal). Avoid simply describing the case—ensure your analysis addresses the comparative requirement.
• Base your study and conclusions on theoretical arguments. These arguments must investigate causal relationships between a single dependent variable and chosen independent and (if necessary) intervening variables. Clearly define these types of variables in your work.
• It is also important to reflect how the chosen variables could be most precisely operationalized. Sometimes some rather general concepts (such as “quality of democracy”, “gender equality”, “control of corruption”) could be operationalized thanks to certain composite indexes that are regularly reported by reputable international agencies, such as “V-DEM”, “Freedomhouse”, “World Bank”, etc. In other cases, the chosen variables could be empirically grounded by respective statistical data, for e.g. GDP per capita PPP for “economic level”, life expectancy for “public health”, or Gini index for “income inequality”. Also, the description of variables’ values could be also entirely qualitative, such as religion, geographical region, institutional type of democracy etc.
• This assignment must be completed individually.
• The expected length of the assignment is approximately 10 to 15 pages.
• Submit an individual research plan (max two pages) outlining your topic, research problem or question, topic’s relevance, theoretical framework (with tentative hypothesis, if available), reasoning of selection of cases to be compared. The plan is 10% of the final grade and due March 27.
• The deadline for the written assignment is May 29. We will assess it by considering creativity and independence, literature knowledge, theoretical foundation, explanation of causal relationships, methodological rigor, and intellectual courage.
• You may choose any research topic, but your focus must stay on political phenomena. Examples of suitable areas include state formation, nationalism, ethnic conflict resolution, democratization, democratic stability, political culture, civil wars, protest politics, contemporary movements, globalization’s impact on economic policy, party systems, electoral systems, voter behaviour, political clientelism, development and forms of democracy and capitalism, federalism, judicial policy, and government formation and stability. When choosing your topic, ensure your research fits within the field of political science. To choose the topic, you could also link your chosen phenomenon explicitly to a global challenge. For example, consider the prompt: “How does this topic illuminate a pressing global challenge?” This will help align your research topic with the programme’s goals and reinforce the relevance of your investigation[1].

Methodological principles: structure of the essay

There is no required research structure. The structure described below is optional, and you may use it as a model to help organize your essay. Choose a structure that best fits your own research question.

Table No. 1. Example of essay structure

Methodological principles II: comparability and application of general concepts

The things being compared are always similar in certain respects and different in others. Hence, the fundamental question the researcher must ask themselves to ascertain, whether the cases are comparable, is: what is the basis of the comparison in general (a general concept that applies to all the objects being analysed), and whether this corresponds to the main research question being raised?

That is, apples and plums could not be compared if the research question asked about apple tastes. However, they could be compared if our goal were to study fruit ripening. Similarly, you could compare an apple and a bird if both objects inspired a certain poet. In that case, we would explain what kinds of poems the poet writes when inspired by apples, what kinds when inspired by birds, and whether their structures differ, and, if so, how.

Sartori (1991): the main (avoidable) errors of comparison when applying general concepts:

1. a) Parochialism. This error occurs when concepts are applied to a particular case that, in the general context, mean different things. An example of such an error would be a study that “examines” the formation of “coalition governments” in the USA (i.e., a presidential democracy with a two-party system, where there is no need for parties to form coalitions, unlike in parliamentary multi-party democracies).
2. b) Misclassification. This occurs when a concept is applied equally to cases that are completely different, i.e., incomparable. For example: “one-party system” in democratic Japan and in the totalitarian USSR.
3. c) “Degreeism” – when, instead of clearly assigning a case to a category, it is satisfied with an “intermediate state,” such as less democracy or more democracy. In this case, it is unclear why a “gradual” state can be called “democracy.”
4. d) Conceptual stretching. This happens when a concept is applied so widely that it loses meaning. For example, using terms like ideology, mobilization, or pluralism too broadly devalues these concepts.

To help ensure conceptual clarity and to avoid pitfalls such as parochialism or misclassification, explicitly ask yourself: What single overarching concept makes these cases comparable? In your plan, include a one-sentence justification of comparability that clearly states the shared concept linking your chosen cases.

Methodological principles III: two strategies for qualitative comparison and one more

When conducting a small-N comparative study, it is also important to be aware of the two most commonly used qualitative comparison strategies – most similar systems’ (based on J.S. Mill’s method of difference) and most different systems’ (based on J.S. Mill’s method of agreement) designs (MSSD and MDSD). The first strategy (MSSD) compares cases as similar as possible to determine which independent variable best explains the differences in the dependent variable. The second strategy (MDSD), in contrast, selects cases as different as possible to determine a causal relationship between the dependent and independent variables that is valid across all cases (no matter how different they are).

When deciding which design to use, connect your choice to your inference goal: choose MSSD if you want to explain why similar cases produce different outcomes, and choose MDSD if you want to explain why different cases share a similar outcome.

See the diagrams of both strategies in Table No. 2 below and examples in Table No. 5, Appendix No. 2.

Table No. 2. MDSD and MSSD

A joint comparison rule also uses both agreement and difference methods. This helps detect more complex forms of causality, like multiple or conjunctive causes. For example, see Table 3.

Table No. 3. What determines economic growth?

Source: Clark, Cal, and Steve Chan 1996, p.91.

Below the dotted line, you will find the answer to this question. Before reading further, take a moment to write down your own answer or thoughts on how you would solve this puzzle. This active step will help you engage more deeply with the material and assess your own understanding.

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ANSWER

Economic growth in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea follows the rule of agreement; Japanese mentality is a key factor. Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines are explained by the rule of difference: changes in state-society relations correlate with economic growth. Thus, growth is linked to either mentality or state-society structure, showing multiple causal pathways.

Methodological Principles IV: Problems of super-determinism (few cases, many variables) and multicausality

One major methodological problem of qualitative comparison (often noted by researchers who prefer quantitative methods) is that too few cases are studied to establish any general causal relationships beyond those cases. Social phenomena usually involve many unknowns (variables). Therefore, only after many observations, or by studying many cases, can one form more durable causal statements. In politics, however, when selecting countries for comparison, it is often hard to find enough cases to use a quantitative approach. Thus, qualitative comparison of a few cases remains common.

To address the “few cases, many variables” problem, these means are proposed: (a) increasing the number of cases over space or time; (b) reducing variables by aggregating them and/or keeping only the most important with theory and literature review; (c) comparing very similar cases, i.e., applying MSSD.

An even more general problem (applicable not to individual methodological strategies, but to the analysis of politics in general) is the nature of the multicausality of social phenomena. In other words, the causality of social phenomena often depends on contextual (time and space) circumstances, can be conjectural or multiple (when a certain phenomenon is determined by the union of several causes or by unrelated causes in different situations), and reciprocal (when causes and effects are tightly intertwined). This is another reason (and perhaps a more important one) why studies based on a qualitative comparative strategy remain central in comparative politics.

Methodological principles V: process tracing

When addressing the problem of multicausality, the comparative method is often combined with process tracing. Process tracing can be defined as a research strategy that analyses diagnostic evidence of processes, sequences, and conjectures about events in a given case in order to formulate or test hypotheses about causal mechanisms that explain the case (Bennett & Checkel, 2015, p. 7).

Process tracing (sometimes called systemic process analysis) is characterized by an orientation towards a detailed examination of the process of one or another phenomenon, relying on rational choice and/or historical institutional theoretical models (e.g., path dependence, prisoner’s dilemma, etc.) or other heuristic tools (for more on this, see Hall 2003). It is important to note that the focus on process also has more general implications for the development of comparative politics as a whole. It is no longer satisfied with simply stating causal relationships between variables, but also seeks to clarify the mechanisms that could justify how one or another factor X ultimately led to a certain phenomenon Y. In other words, like a culinary recipe, the aim is to know not only its ingredients but also the process – how they interact with each other and in what order they are arranged (Pierson 2004).

One of the main ideas behind process tracing is Bayesian logic, named after the 18th-century English mathematician Thomas Bayes. In this way of thinking about statistics, what matters most when judging a hypothesis is how likely it seemed before and how surprising the new data is, based on how likely that data was before. New data that seemed unlikely before makes an unlikely hypothesis stronger than data that was already expected makes a likely hypothesis stronger. This is really about raising or lowering how much we believe in a certain hypothesis. So, with this logic, what matters most is the kind of evidence we find, not just how much evidence there is.

Stephen Van Evera formulated a Bayesian typology of evidence (hypothesis tests). He emphasized that evidence for a given hypothesis can be classified according to its uniqueness and certainty. Based on this, Van Evera formulated four types: the hoop, the smoking-gun, the doubly-decisive, and the straw-in-the-wind (Van Evera 1997, pp. 30-32). The test features are presented in Table 4.

Table No. 4. Process traceability tests for determining causal inferences

Source: Collier D., „Understanding process tracing“, PS: Political Science and Politics, 44(4), 2011, P. 825.

Van Evera’s tests help you figure out what different pieces of evidence can or cannot show about a causal hypothesis in a case study or process tracing.

Example

Suppose your hypothesis is that “Leader X deliberately planned war”:

• If you find a private memo that says “I will launch war on date Y,” that is a smoking-gun. This would give very strong support to your hypothesis.
• If there are no planning documents in archives where you would expect to find them, this could count as failing a hoop test and would seriously weaken your hypothesis.
• If there were military exercise before the start of war, one could treat it as “straw-in-the-wind” evidence. It somewhat supports the hypothesis, but it does not directly reveal actual intentions of the leader.
• Doubly decisive tests are extremely rare in social sciences but one can achieve them by combing multiple tests which simultaneously support one explanation and eliminate all others. Therefore, use several weaker tests, like straws and hoops, to build your argument instead of waiting for one perfect, doubly decisive test.

Annex 1

Charles Wright Mills’s thoughts on the sociological imagination

This work of yours (like all future ones) will depend to a large extent on the amount of imagination you have in investigating the problems you have chosen. Imagination is difficult to define, but some authors have tried to assess it and offer ways to stimulate it.

One such person is the famous American sociologist Charles Wright Mills. In his book “The Sociological Imagination”, he outlines the most important advice on how to avoid perhaps the greatest danger for a sociologist (just like a political scientist) to become a “soulless robot”, mechanically applying some methodologies and not saying anything that would be truly important for a person and society. In this sense, he defended the classical tradition of sociology, from which political science, to a certain extent, originated.

According to C.W. Mills, science is a creative activity that requires daily reflection. This reflection is essentially continuous, and it does not presuppose a distinction between work and life. True science is not work that is carried out in a constant mode, from a certain hour in the morning to a certain hour in the evening. It is more like a non-stop engine that draws on everyday experiences, even very simple ones or those distant from the “direct” topic of research.

You can get C.W. Mills’s book at the VU library. It would be enough to read the very last chapter (appendix) – “On Intellectual Craftsmanship” (pp. 195-226). C.W. Mills did not limit himself to abstract considerations but also tried to practically describe and advise what it means to write an imaginative scientific paper. That chapter is exactly about that.

Below are his main ideas. For a deeper understanding, it is, of course, better to read the original. And if the topic of scientific imagination and craftsmanship itself interests you even more, you can try looking for later authors who have expressed their thoughts on it.[2]

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Imagination, according to C.W. Mills, is often successfully evoked when one connects otherwise separate things, thereby discovering unexpected connections (p. 201).

To do this, you need to have a “file”. A file where you would mark the most important things that stuck, passages of texts that “caught something”, as well as your own ideas, projects that were born in your mind. It is an analogue of a diary. You should fill it in regularly, not only to preserve important thoughts (because you will inevitably forget a lot otherwise), but also to practice your writing skills (which are necessary). Over time, you will unconsciously see how the desire (and the need) arises to review these notes. By diligently filling in and reviewing the file, you will both refresh your knowledge or understanding and come up with something new or a good solution to some issue. In other words, a successful file helps both to improve/store memory and to generate new ideas. C.W. Mills’ idea that the social sciences develop best when researchers from different fields exchange notes and comment on one another’s work is interesting. This is supposedly how academic discussion and the exchange of ideas best take place (p. 198).

Creating such a “file” is probably easiest by marking other authors’ thoughts. There are many ways to mark, but one way or another, such notes can reflect three things: (a) the essential insights of the authors you read on the issues you care about; (b) the justifications for these insights, with which you may or may not agree; and (c) such arguments or ideas on the basis of which you can develop something new and your own. In fact, the conditions for writing such “files” and storing notes have improved significantly compared to the days of C.W. Mills. Many of the necessary texts are electronic, and copying important things takes only a few moments. And to prevent this from becoming an automatic/technical action, personal comments that explain why you wrote it down and what it means are very helpful.

In addition to marking up other authors’ thoughts/statements, you can also create your own projects. They may never see the light of day, but they will always be useful as an exercise for the mind. C.W. Mills advises putting together “ideal” projects, i.e., everything that would actually be needed to solve the problem/puzzle in detail and in sufficient detail. Then you will see what is missing and what cannot be done, but what you can perhaps replace with something else, at least at this stage. The “ideal” project thus provides an overall picture, indicates the place, what can be expected to be achieved with the available means, and the prospects for further work in this area.

On the other hand, it is not at all necessary to read only specific authors or create research projects to fill your file. Sometimes (and quite often) very important ideas arise when you encounter things from a completely different field, for example, while watching a TV show/series, reading a novel, or talking to acquaintances, old friends, walking down the street, etc. All this can sometimes offer completely unexpected insights. You just have to be careful not to let it go and try to capture it so that it doesn’t disappear later.

The more detailed the file, the more ideas from different fields it can encompass, the greater the space for imagination and original, independent research.

It is also worth mentioning the distinction made by C.W. Mills between “topic” (question) and “theme” (motive, general idea) (p. 216). Topics are specific issues that you are going to examine (e.g., if it were a study of the elite, it could be the careers of corporate executives, the increased power of military officers, etc.). Some part of the text is always allocated to discuss such topics, but it is not so much the amount of space allocated that is important but the order in which these issues are examined and their mutual relationship. And here it is no longer possible to do without themes. Just as a good literary work contains several general ideas that unite the entire text, so in a creatively structured scientific work, motifs that are repeated in various places and that “bind” the entire text are conveyed from certain angles. Thus, it is important to know not only the topics themselves under examination, but also the general themes or ideas, their mutual relationships, and connections with the specific issues under discussion. It is advisable to allocate space for a clear presentation of these points, either at the beginning or at the end.

Another important factor for the mastery and imagination of scientific work is clear language. You need to write as simply as possible. And try to present all ideas in such a way that all this is as clear and understandable as possible for the reader. Several things are important here. Define the most important concepts specifically and unambiguously. Avoid complexity. Try to make it understandable for the “ordinary person”. And perceive yourself as a voice, and not just a mechanical “spreader” of certain “scientific facts and statements”. It is important to note that often, presenting your discoveries more clearly to others helps you better understand them yourself and, later, even adjust their content appropriately.

Some more tips from C.W. Mills on how to stimulate sociological imagination (pp. 212-217): (a) try to rearrange your file by finding connections between completely different parts of it; (b) “play” with important words and statements, explore their synonyms – perhaps in this way you will catch the hidden semantic connections between several essential concepts or take a new look at the classifications of a certain phenomenon; (c) try to question the existing categories of a certain phenomenon/thing and explore the possibilities of reclassifying it all and thus better understand the set of certain cases; it is especially worth trying to classify not according to one, but several attributes at the same time (cross-classifying); (d) think in terms of opposites, i.e. imagine behaviour or a certain case in completely opposite circumstances, or try to assess how representatives of completely different scientific fields would treat the same phenomenon; (e) compare the phenomenon/case under study with certain of their (time/space) analogues and/or assess the general context of diversity – this will help to better understand the specificity of the object under study and its commonality with other similar formations.

That’s probably all. Of course, much of this is intended for “beginning scientists”, so not everything may necessarily apply to you. However, if you really want to write a paper that will give you creative joy, it might be worth following these tips.

Good luck!

Annex No. 2.

Table No. 5. Examples of qualitative comparative research

Bibliography

Bennett, Andrew, and Jeffery T. Checkel (eds.) (2015). Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Boix, Carles, and Susan C. Stokes (eds.) (2007), The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, Oxford University Press.

Clark, Cal, and Steve Chan (1996), “MNCs and Developmentalism: Domestic Structures as an Explanation for East Asian Dynamism”, In. Chan, Steve (eds.) Foreign Direct Investment in a Changing Global Political Economy. Houndmills: Macmillan.

Collier, David (2011), „Understanding process tracing“, PS: Political Science and Politics, 44(4).

Hall, Peter A. (2003), „Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Politics“. Kn Mahoney, James, and Dietrich Rueschmeyer (eds.). Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, P. 373-404.

Howard, Marc Morje (2003), The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe, Cambridge University Press.

Lijphart, Arend (1971(2008)), „Comparative politics and the comparative method“. In. Lijphart, Arend.Thinking about Democracy:Power Sharing and Majority Rule in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge. P. 245-265.

Mills, Wright C. (1959/1977), „On Intellectual Craftmanship”. In. Mills, Wright C. The Sociological Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 195-226.

Norkus, Zenonas (2006), „Apie Baltijos Siciliją ir Lombardiją: postsocialistinės kaitos pasiekimų Baltijos šalyse skirtumai ir priežastys” // Politologija 2006/01.

Norkus, Zenonas (2008), Kokia demokratija, koks kapitalizmas? Pokomunistinė transformacija Lietuvoje lyginamosios sociologijos požiūriu, Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla.

Norkus, Zenonas, ir Vaidas Morkevičius (2011), Kokybinė lyginamoji analizė. Kaunas, LiDA.

Pierson, Paul (2004), Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press.

Sartori, Giovanni (1991), „Comparing and Miscomparing“. Journal of Theoretical Politics, 3(3), P. 243-257.

Van Evera, Stephen (1997), Guide to Methods for Students of Political Science. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

[1] This (and even broader) subject area is covered in considerable detail in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics (ed. Boix & Stokes: 2007), which is available in the VLE system. After selecting a specific topic, we recommend browsing it.

[2] C.W. Mills emphasizes note-taking. Recently, computer programs based on the Zettelkasten method, developed by the 20th-century German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, have become popular, such as Obsidian and Zettlr. They help you take notes. For more information on the Zettelkasten method, see Ahrens, Sönke (2017), How to Take Smart Notes: One Easy Way to Write. North Charleston, SC: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. Kadavy, David (2021), Digital Zettelkasten: Principles, Methods, and Examples. Kadavy Inc.