PS 817: Empirical Methods of Political Inquiry

Department of Political Science

University of Wisconsin-Madison
Fall 2019

Class Time: Tuesdays, 3:30-5:25, Van Hise Hall Room 474

Professor: Eleanor Neff Powell (Graduate students please call me Ellie!)

Office Hours: Mondays 1:30-3:30.

To reserve a time slot during office hours : https://calendly.com/eleanor-powell/office-hours
Meetings must be reserved 24 hours in advance.
Email: Eleanor.powell@wisc.edu

Course Overview: This course introduces the fundamentals of research design in political
science. We start by examining how political scientists formulate puzzles and questions, and
discuss the processes of theorization, concept formation and measurement. We then study
how political scientists test claims using qualitative and quantitative methods. Such methods
include description, controlled comparisons, and natural, field and survey experiments. We
conclude with a discussion of the role of transparency and replications in political science
research.

Official Course Description: Acquaints students with a wide variety of research methods used
to analyze political phenomena, emphasizing both quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Official Course Requisites: Graduate/professional standing.

Learning Outcomes: Successful students will gain a broad understanding of the political science
method as described above. In particular, students will gain an appreciation of the
fundamentals of good research design, and the strengths and weaknesses of various qualitative
and quantitative research methods.

Course credits: This is a three-credit class. The credit standard for this course is met by an
expectation of a total of 135 hours of student engagement with the course learning activities,
which include class meetings of two hours each week, multiple instructor-student meetings
over the course of the semester, reading, data collection, analysis, writing, etc.

Assignments and grading: The class grade will be based on active and informed class
participation, five short written assignments and a term paper. The specifics of these
assignments and a detailed grading breakdown are available below:
• Active, informed class participation, for 20% of the class grade. Participants are
expected to have read the assigned works closely, and reflected on them, including
possibly by discussing them with their colleagues before class.
• Five short assignments (3-5 pages; double-spaced), for 10% of the class grade each.
 o Assignment 1: Identify a puzzle or question that you find interesting.
Hypothesize two to three explanations, drawing on relevant literatures or
theories. Due: 10/1
o Assignment 2: From assignment 1 or from a topic of your choosing, identify your
dependent variable. Devise two to four different ways in which this might be
measured. What are the possibilities of mis-measurement? How can these be
minimized? Due: 10/15
o Assignment 3: Critique a research design presented in a paper at a colloquium in
your field. What problems you see in the research design and what might be
done to fix those problems? Due: Anytime before 12/3
o Assignment 4: Locate data for your dependent variable from #2. Also locate data
for 4-5 independent variables you think will be important. What kind of sample
overlap do you have? Do you have missing data problems? Due: 11/12
o Assignment 5: Design an experiment (survey, natural, field) to help answer the
puzzle you identified in the previous assignments. Assume you have the power
of fiat in making your experiment happen. Be sure to identify the exact nature of
the treatment. What are possible confounding factors? Due: 12/3
• A term paper, for 30% of the class grade. The paper should pose a clear research
question, possibly from previous course assignments, synthesize the relevant literature,
and outline a theory and at least two falsifiable hypotheses. In the bulk of the paper,
students should develop a tractable research design (including a data collection and
analysis plan) that would allow for theory testing. Ideally, students would pursue this
project in subsequent classes, resulting in a published paper. Students should discuss
their topics with me once by week 6, and a second time by week 11. Papers are due on
Canvas one week after the last class, on 12/17. The paper should be approximately 20
pages double-spaced.

Rules, Rights & Responsibilities: See http://guide.wisc.edu/graduate/

Academic Integrity: By enrolling in this course, each student assumes the responsibilities of an
active participant in UW-Madison’s community of scholars in which everyone’s academic work
and behavior are held to the highest academic integrity standards. Academic misconduct
compromises the integrity of the university. Cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, unauthorized
collaboration, and helping others commit these acts are examples of academic misconduct,
which can result in disciplinary action. This includes but is not limited to failure on the
assignment/course, disciplinary probation, or suspension. Substantial or repeated cases of
misconduct will be forwarded to the Office of Student Conduct & Community Standards for
additional review. For more information, refer to
studentconduct.wiscweb.wisc.edu/academicintegrity/.

Accommodations for students with disabilities: The University of Wisconsin-Madison supports

the right of all enrolled students to a full and equal educational opportunity. The Americans
with Disabilities Act (ADA), Wisconsin State Statute (36.12), and UW-Madison policy (Faculty
Document 1071) require that students with disabilities be reasonably accommodated in
instruction and campus life. Reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities is a
shared faculty and student responsibility. Students are expected to inform me of their need for
instructional accommodations by the end of the third week of the semester, or as soon as
possible after a disability has been incurred or recognized. I, will work either directly with you
or in coordination with the McBurney Center (at 1305 Linden Drive and 608.263.2741; see
www.mcburney.wisc.edu) to identify and provide reasonable instructional accommodations.
Disability information, including instructional accommodations as part of a student's
educational record, is confidential and protected under FERPA.

Diversity and inclusion: Diversity is a source of strength, creativity, and innovation for
UWMadison. We value the contributions of each person and respect the profound ways their
identity, culture, background, experience, status, abilities, and opinion enrich the university
community. We commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in teaching, research, outreach,
and diversity as inextricably linked goals. The University of Wisconsin-Madison fulfills its public
mission by creating a welcoming and inclusive community for people from every background –
people who as students, faculty, and staff serve Wisconsin and the world.

Readings
The readings are a combination of books, book chapters, and articles. Some are general sources
intended to acquaint you with a set of issues; others are applications that exemplify a
methodological approach. The three required books are Gerring’s Social Science Methodology:
A Unified Framework (2nd ed.), King, Keohane, and Verba’s Designing Social Inquiry (KKV), and
Brady and Collier’s Rethinking Social Inquiry (2nd ed.), all available for purchase online. You are
welcome to borrow, share, or buy the books as you see fit. Other readings will be distributed
electronically on the canvas course website. Students are expected to do all of the required
reading and come to class meetings ready to discuss the material. I will give advance notice
when the readings are changed.

Course Outline:
A detailed class plan—subject to revision—follows.

Class 1 (9/10): Introduction

Class 2 (9/17): Puzzles and Questions

King, Keohane and Verba, Chapters 1, 2.
Gerring, Chapters 1, 2.
Collier and Brady, Chapters 1, 5.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Basic Books.
Chapter 1.
Keohane, Robert O. 2009. "Political Science as a Vocation." PS: Political Science & Politics 42:
359-63.
Class 3 (9/24): Theories, Models, Hypotheses
Gerring, Chapters 3, 6, 8.
Collier and Brady, Chapter 11.
Fearon, James D. 1991. "Counterfactuals and Hypothesis Testing in Political Science." World
Politics 43: 169-95.
Kuhn, Thomas S. 1962. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. Skim pages 1-173.
Lakatos, Imre. 1968. "Criticism and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes."
Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Aristotelian society.
Clarke, Kevin A., and David M. Primo. 2007. "Modernizing Political Science: A Model-Based
Approach." Perspectives on Politics 5: 741-53.

Class 4 (10/1): Concepts

Gerring, Chapter 5.
Sartori, Giovanni. 1970. "Concept Misformation in Comparative Politics." American Political
Science Review 64: 1033-53.
Pitkin, Hanna Fenichel. 1967. The Concept of Representation. Berkeley: University of
California. Appendix on Etymology.
Abdelal, Rawi, Yoshiko M Herrera, Alastair Iain Johnston, and Rose McDermott. 2006. "Identity
as a Variable." Perspectives on Politics 4: 695-711.
Fisman, Raymond, and Edward Miguel. 2007. "Corruption, Norms, and Legal Enforcement:
Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets." Journal of Political Economy 115: 1020-48.

Class 5 (10/1): Measurement

Gerring, Chapter 7.
King, Keohane and Verba, pages 150-68.
Coppedge, Michael, John Gerring, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Steven Fish, Allen Hicken,
Matthew Kroenig, Staffan I Lindberg, Kelly McMann, and Pamela Paxton. 2011.
"Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach." Perspectives on Politics
9: 247-67.
Adcock, Robert and David Collier. 2001. "Measurement Validity: A Shared Standard for
Qualitative and Quantitative Research." American Political Science Review 95: 529-46.
Grimmer, Justin. 2010. "A Bayesian Hierarchical Topic Model for Political Texts: Measuring
Expressed Agendas in Senate Press Releases." Political analysis 18: 1-35.

Class 6 (10/8): Data Collection and Description

Gerring, John. 2012. "Mere Description." British Journal of Political Science 42: 721-46.
Dal Bó, Ernesto, Frederico Finan, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson, and Johanna Rickne. 2017. "Who
Becomes a Politician?" The Quarterly Journal of Economics 132: 1877-914.
Bonica, Adam. 2014. "Mapping the Ideological Marketplace." American Journal of Political
Science 58: 367-86.
Grimmer, J., 2015. “We are all social scientists now: how big data, machine learning, and causal
inference work together.” PS: Political Science & Politics, 48(1), pp.80-83.

Class 7 (10/15): Data Collection and Description

Gerring, John. 2012. "Mere Description." British Journal of Political Science 42: 721-46.
Dal Bó, Ernesto, Frederico Finan, Olle Folke, Torsten Persson, and Johanna Rickne. 2017. "Who
Becomes a Politician?" The Quarterly Journal of Economics 132: 1877-914.
Bonica, Adam. 2014. "Mapping the Ideological Marketplace." American Journal of Political
Science 58: 367-86.
Grimmer, J., 2015. “We are all social scientists now: how big data, machine learning, and causal
inference work together.” PS: Political Science & Politics, 48(1), pp.80-83.

Class 8 (10/22): Case Selection, Case Methods, Sampling and Generalization

Brady and Collier, Chapters 6, 10 and 11.
Gerring, John. 2004. "What Is a Case Study and What Is It Good For?" American Political
Science Review 98: 341-54.
Flyvbjerg, Bent. 2006. "Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research." Qualitative
inquiry 12: 219-45.
Geddes, Barbara. 1990. "How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get: Selection
Bias in Comparative Politics." Political analysis 2: 131-50.
Gisselquist, Rachel M. 2014. "Paired Comparison and Theory Development: Considerations for
Case Selection." PS: Political Science & Politics 47: 477-84.

Class 9 (10/29): Participant Observation and Interviews

Cramer, Katherine J. 2016. The Politics of Resentment: Rural Consciousness in Wisconsin and
the Rise of Scott Walker: University of Chicago Press. Chapters 1, 2 and appendices.
Gillespie, Andra and Milessa R. Michelson. 2011. “Participant Observation and the Political
Scientist: Possibilities, Priorities and Practicalities.” PS: Political Science and Politics. 44(2): 261-
265.
Morris, Zoë Slote. 2009. "The Truth About Interviewing Elites." Politics 29: 209-17.
Martin, Cathie Jo. 2013. "Crafting Interviews to Capture Cause and Effect." In Interview
Research in Political Science, ed. Layna Mosley: Cornell University Press. 109-24.
Mosley, Layna. 2013. "Introduction: "Just Talk to People"? Interviews in Contemporary
Political Science." In Interview Research in Political Science, ed. Layna Mosley: Cornell
University Press. 1-28.
Parker, David C. W. 2018. “Following Fenno: Learning from Senate Candidates in the Age of
Social Media and Party Polarization.” The Forum. 16(2): 145-170.
Simmons, Erica S. 2016. "Market Reforms and Water Wars." World Politics 68: 37-73.

Class 10 (11/5): Regression, Fixed Effects, Difference-in-Difference, Matching

Fearon, James D., and David D. Laitin. 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War." American
Political Science Review 97: 75-90.
Miller, Grant. 2008. "Women's Suffrage, Political Responsiveness, and Child Survival in
American History." Quarterly Journal of Economics 123: 1287-327.
Sekhon, Jasjeet S. 2009. "Opiates for the Matches: Matching Methods for Causal Inference."
Annual Review of Political Science 12: 487-508.
Dube, Arindrajit, Oeindrila Dube, and Omar García-Ponce. 2013. "Cross-Border Spillover: Us
Gun Laws and Violence in Mexico." American Political Science Review 107: 397-417.

Class 11 (11/12): Instrumental Variables and Regression Discontinuity Estimators

Acemoglu, Daron, James Robinson, and Simon Johnson. 2001. "The Colonial Origins of
Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation." The American Economic Review
91: 1369-401.
Hansford, Thomas G., and Brad T. Gomez. 2010. "Estimating the Electoral Effects of Voter
Turnout." American Political Science Review 104: 268-88.
Lee, Alexander, and Kenneth A Schultz. 2012. "Comparing British and French Colonial Legacies:
A Discontinuity Analysis of Cameroon." Quarterly Journal of Political Science 7: 365-410.
Lee, David S. 2008. "Randomized Experiments from Non-Random Selection in U.S. House
Elections." Journal of Econometrics 142: 675-97.

Class 12 (11/19): Natural Experiments

Bhavnani, Rikhil R. 2009. "Do Electoral Quotas Work after They Are Withdrawn? Evidence from
a Natural Experiment in India." American Political Science Review 103: 23-35.
Erikson, Robert S, and Laura Stoker. 2011. "Caught in the Draft: The Effects of Vietnam Draft
Lottery Status on Political Attitudes." American Political Science Review 105: 221-37.
Baldwin, Kate, and Rikhil R Bhavnani. 2015. "Ancillary Studies of Experiments: Opportunities
and Challenges." Journal of Globalization and Development 6: 113-46.
Hyde, Susan D. 2007. "The Observer Effect in International Politics: Evidence from a Natural
Experiment." World Politics 60: 37-63.
Grimmer, Justin and Eleanor Neff Powell. 2013. “Congressmen in exile: the politics and
consequences of involuntary committee removal.” Journal of Politics. 75(4): 907-920.

Class 13 (11/26): Laboratory and Field Experiments

Ostrom, Elinor, James Walker, and Roy Gardner. 1992. "Covenants with and without a Sword:
Self-Governance Is Possible." The American Political Science Review 86: 404-17.
Fearon, James D, Macartan Humphreys, and Jeremy M Weinstein. 2015. "How Does
Development Assistance Affect Collective Action Capacity? Results from a Field
Experiment in Post-Conflict Liberia." American Political Science Review 109: 450-69.
Wantchekon, Leonard. 2003. "Clientelism and Voting Behavior: Evidence from a Field
Experiment in Benin." World Politics 55: 399-422.
Gerber, Alan S, and Donald P Green. 2000. "The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and
Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment." American Political Science Review
94: 653-63.

Class 14 (12/3): Surveys and Survey Experiments

Schaeffer, Nora Cate, and Stanley Presser. 2003. "The Science of Asking Questions." Annual
Review of Sociology 29.
Sniderman, Paul M. 2018. "Some Advances in the Design of Survey Experiments." Annual
Review of Political Science 21: 259-75.
Tomz, Michael R., and Jessica L. P. Weeks. 2013. "Public Opinion and the Democratic Peace."
American Political Science Review 107: 849-65.
Lupu, Noam. 2013. "Party Brands and Partisanship: Theory with Evidence from a Survey
Experiment in Argentina." American Journal of Political Science 57: 49-64.
Barabas, Jason, and Jennifer Jerit. 2010. "Are Survey Experiments Externally Valid?" American
Political Science Review 104: 226-42.
Hainmueller, Jens, Dominik Hangartner, and Teppei Yamamoto. 2015. "Validating Vignette and
Conjoint Survey Experiments against Real-World Behavior." Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences 112: 2395-400.

Class 15 (12/10): Replication and Transparency in Research

Franco, Annie, Neil Malhotra, and Gabor Simonovits. 2014. "Publication Bias in the Social
Sciences: Unlocking the File Drawer." Science 345: 1502-05.
Isaac, Jeffrey C. 2015. "For a More Public Political Science." Perspectives on Politics 13: 269-83.
Fowler, Anthony, and Andrew B Hall. 2016. "Do Shark Attacks Influence Presidential Elections?
Reassessing a Prominent Finding on Voter Competence." The Journal of Politics.
Lupia, Arthur, and Colin Elman. 2014. "Openness in Political Science: Data Access and Research
Transparency: Introduction." PS: Political Science & Politics 47: 19-42.
https://www.bitss.org/2015/11/12/dart-statement-pushback-and-response/ and links.
Jones, Zachary M. 2013. "Git/Github, Transparency, and Legitimacy in Quantitative Research."
The Political Methodologist 21: 6-7.
Miguel, E., Camerer, C., Casey, K., Cohen, J., Esterling, K.M., Gerber, A., Glennerster, R., Green,
D.P., Humphreys, M., Imbens, G. and Laitin, D., 2014. “Promoting transparency in social
science research.” Science, 343(6166), pp.30-31.

Final papers due on Canvas, 12/17.