In case you haven't yet turned in your paper yet, I thought you might like
to know that we are supposed to turn in our grades on Tuesday. Before
that, the three of us need to discuss them, and before that we need to
read them. One or more of us might even have a few other responsibilities
before then too. The syllabus says "We prefer to give no incompletes;
papers turned in late will be judged according to proportionately higher
standards." Whereever you are in your paper, its time to start the
sentence that begins "In conclusion..."
Gary
> What: Dinner for Gov't 2010
> When: Sunday, Jan. 13, 2002, 6:30.
> Who: Class participants and spouses/significant others.
> Where: Chez Verba
> 142 Summit Ave.
> Brookline
> (617-232-4987)
>
> Please RSVP to sverba(a)harvard.edu indicating if you can come and if you
> are one or two.
>
Below is our plan for presentations. The purpose of this is for everyone
to use what we learned to improve each research project. Please plan for
a short presentation of 5-10 minutes, or a bit longer if necessary for
pairs. If you talk longer the time will come out of the class discussion
of your paper. See you after Thanksgiving.
Gary
> week 11:
>
> Shaun Rein & Debra Perez "voting patterns"
> Francis Shen & Jacob Kline "comparing models of voting behavior"
> Julian Blake "the changing role of the imf"
>
> week 12:
>
> Catherina Wrek Brader "Organization behavior and
> Foreign policy crises"
> Sonal Pandya "The politics of PUblic Sector banking in germany"
> Wayne Thornton "Goverment bureaucracies and policy innovation: an
> oxymoron?"
> Erin Stimson & Mike Horowitz "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: A study of
> Suicide Bombers"
>
The topic for this week is experiments. The general idea is easy, but the
details are crucial and deserve careful attention. Please have a look at
the readings so our discussion will be productive:
http://www.cbrss.harvard.edu/gov2010.htm#Week10
See you Thursday.
Gary
: Gary King, King(a)Harvard.Edu http://GKing.Harvard.Edu :
: Center for Basic Research Direct (617) 495-2027 :
: in the Social Sciences Assistant (617) 495-9271 :
: 34 Kirkland Street, Rm. 2 HU-MIT DC (617) 495-4734 :
: Harvard U, Cambridge, MA 02138 eFax (520) 832-7022 :
To Students in Gov't 2010:
This week's class:
This week the class will be devoted to the issues raised in the
reading for this week by Geertz, Schwartz, Scott, and Verba/Schlozman/Brady
(Hochschild from last week is useful too.) The works advocate different
research techniques and in several of the cases use the alternative methods
to study a similar problem: how people behave as political actors (assuming
that in some sense Geertz's Cohen and Scott's peasants are acting
politically.) VSB use standard survey techniques; the others use more
intensive modes of observation.
We do not want to deal with the substance of their work (though
comparisons among them may be useful for the task we pose). Rather want
to use the alternative approaches to deal with the following issue:
In KKV, the authors say that one ought to choose a topic that is
substantively important and also contributes to social science
literature. Few topics fit that description better than attempting to
understand the roots of terrorism. From a substantive point of view, we need
to know where terrorists (or potential terrorists) are likely to appear. And
this fits a long term social science interest in the roots of political
behavior; in particular extremist/alienated behavior. As social
scientists we want descriptive and causal inference. And this is just
what policy makers need: not only specific descriptions of what
happened when, but inferences as to people or movements or patterns we
have not observed. And we need above all valid causal inferences to
understand what future events may take place. (For a journalistic
approach, see this week's NY Times Magazine Section on Suicide Terrorosts.)
Suppose you are preparing a research proposal to study where terrorists
are likely to come from -- that is, to study the social, psychological,
ideological, political, or
whatever forces that lead individuals to become terrorists, what would you
propose? Assume that money is no object and even assume that access to
societies is about as open as the US (you can survey, you can live in
communities, etc.), what would you do? Note that the question is both
about individuals and about societies -- why does an individual become
potentially active in this way and why do various societies generate higher
rates of such individuals? It is both descriptive: where are terrorists or
portential terrorists likely to be found? And why is that the case?
The obvious answer is "let's do everything". Maybe. But still, we want
to analyze the usefulness of the several approaches. The important point
is to understand the principles of descriptive and causal inference
involved.
