SOSC 5170 Qualitative Research Methodology

Transcription

1 SOSC 5170 Qualitative Research Methodology Spring Semester 2018 Instructor: Wenkai He Lecture: Friday 6:30-9:20 pm Room: CYTG001 Office Hours: 1 pm to 2 pm Monday, Office: Room 3376 (or by appointment) hewenkai@ust.hk Course Description: This course focuses on qualitative methodology in small N or single case-studies in social sciences. It addresses theoretical issue of causal reasoning in qualitative research and compare with that embodied in quantitative studies. The assigned readings for each week consist of both papers on methods and examples of using that particular method in empirical research. Topics include: the relationship between quantitative and qualitative research, small N case studies and general theory, mixed methods, critical junctures, natural experiments in social sciences, process-tracing and/or path dependence, analytical narratives, ethnography research, and comparative historical analysis, methodological issues in interview-based research. This course aims to expose the students to the recent progresses in qualitative methodology and help them develop design their respective research projects. Requirements: 1. Class participation [20%] 1) Each student should finish the required readings in advance and come to class prepared to discuss them actively. This course is a graduate seminar based on intensive discussion, and participation includes not only attendance but also contribution to class discussion. I will also grade your class discussion after each class: check means that I am satisfied with your participation in class discussion; 0 means you remain silent during the whole class or just raise some points irrelevant to theme of the week s reading materials. 2) Students will present their grant proposals in class toward the end of the semester, which is also part of the participation grade. 2. Weekly discussion question [20%] Starting from the second week, each student is required to submit one page on a question, a point, or an issue in the weekly readings that she/he really wants to discuss in the seminar. In this one page-long response, you should explain why you think it is important for us to discuss your response-questions. 3. Grant proposal [60%] Each student will submit a grant proposal to conduct qualitative research on a research topic of her/his own choice. The grant proposal must conform to the requirements set forth in the Social Science Research Council s International Dissertation Field Research Fellowship application instructions: 1

2 The research proposal should be around 12-4 double-spaced pages, Font: Times New Roman, size 12. The proposal should have a separate bibliography of a maximum of two pages. The proposal should include the following three parts: I. Statement of Problem: To state directly and briefly your research question against a critical review of the existing literature. The major purpose of this part is to persuade grant-reviewers of the importance of your research: why should they give you fellowship! II. Research Design: How would you design your research so that you can make contributions to the scholarship? You need to present your working hypothesis or causal argument against alternative explanations in the existing literature. III. Research materials: What kind of primary research that you intend to do so as to execute your research plan. The primary research includes archival research or field work. *The grant proposal is due on May 27 by 5pm. Course materials: All course materials are available in electronic format at the course website: Course Schedule: Week 1: Introduction: paradigms in scientific research Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, second edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1970). Week 2: methodology and ontology in social scientific research: Context, data, and causal explanation? Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chapters 1-2. Peter A. Hall, Aligning Ontology and Methodology in Comparative Research, in James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer eds., Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp Bai Ying and Jia Ruixue, Elite Recruitment and Political Stability: The Impact of the Abolition of China s Civil Service Exam, Econometrica, Volume 84, Issue 2 (March 2016). Week 3: The Quantitative and Qualitative Debate: Two Styles, One logic? Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), chapter 3. 2

3 James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, The Tale of Two Cultures: Contrasting Quantitative and Qualitative Research, Political Analysis, 14 (June 2006): Daniel Ziblatt, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp Week 4: Case Studies and Theory Development: small N case-studies and general theory? John Gerring, Case Study Research: Principles and Practices (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Stanley Lieberson, Small N s big conclusions: an examination of the reasoning in comparative studies based on a small number of cases, in Charles Ragin and Howard S. Becker, eds., What Is a Case? Exploring the Foundations of Social Inquiry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979), pp Week 5: Selection Bias in qualitative research Barbara Geddes, How the cases you choose affect the answers you get: selection bias in comparative politics, Political Analysis vol. 2 (1990). David Collier, James Mahoney, and Jason Seawright, Claiming Too Much: Warning about Selection Bias, in Henry Brady and David Collier, eds., Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse tools, Shared Standards. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers pp Ian S. Lustick, History, Historiography, and Political Science: Multiple Historical Records and the Problem of Selection Bias, American Political Science Review, Vol. 90, No. 3 (September 1996): Week 6: Case Studies and Theory Development: negative cases or paired comparison James Mahoney and Gary Goertz, The Possibility Principle: Choosing Negative Cases in Comparative Research, American Political Science Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 (November 2004): Rebecca Jean Emigh, The Power of Negative Thinking: The Use of Negative Case Methodology in the Development of Sociological Theory, Theory and Society, Vol. 26, No. 5 (October 1997): Daniel Ziblatt, Structuring the State: The Formation of Italy and Germany and the Puzzle of Federalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006). Week 7: Case Studies and Theory Development: mixed methods 3

4 Evan Lieberman, Nested Analysis as a Mixed-Method Strategy for Comparative Research, American Political Science Review, Vol. 99, No. 3 (August 2005): Daniel Ziblatt, Shaping Democratic Practice and the Causes of Electoral Fraud: The Case of Nineteenth-Century Germany, American Political Science Review, Vol. 103, No. 1 (February 2009): Recommended reading: Mario Luis Small, How to Conduct a Mixed Methods Study: Recent Trends in a Rapidly Growing Literature, Annual Review of Sociology, 37 (2011): Week 8: Case Studies and Theory Development: Controlled comparison and conceptual clarity. Dan Slater and Daniel Ziblatt, The Enduring Indispensability of the Controlled Comparison, Comparative Political Studies, 46 (October 2013): Dylan Riley, The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania, (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), pp Dylan Riley, Civic Associations and Authoritarian Regimes in Interwar Europe: Italy and Spain in Comparative Perspective, American Sociological Review, 70 (2005): Theda Skocpol, The Tocqueville Problem: Civic Engagement in American Democracy, Social Science History, Vol. 21, Issue 4 (Winter 1997): Week 9: Natural Experiment in social science Thad Dunning, Improving Causal Inference: Strengths and Limitations of Natural Experiments, Political Research Quarterly 61, Issue 2 (2008): Daniel Ziblatt, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), pp Week 10: Critical Junctures: Giovanni Capoccia and R. Daniel Kelemen, The Study of Critical Junctures: Theory, Narrative, and Counterfactuals in Historical Institutionalism, World Politics, 59 (April 2007): Ivan Ermakoff, The Structure of Contingency, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 121, No. 1 (July 2015): Week 11: Interpretative methods and social scientific research James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Heaven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp and David Zaret, Petitions and the "Invention" of Public Opinion in the English Revolution, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 101, No. 6 (May 1996) Daniel Carpenter, "Recruitment by Petition: American Antislavery, French Protestantism, English Suppression," Perspective on Politics (September 2016) 4

5 Or Daniel Carpenter and Colin D. Moore, When Canvassers Became Activists: Antislavery Petitioning and the Political Mobilization of American Women, American Political Science Review (August 2014) Week 12: Participants or Observers in field work: Michael Burawoy, The Extended Case Method: Four Countries, Four Decades, Four Great Transformations, and One Theoretical Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009). Ching Kwan Lee, The Specter of Global China: Politics, Labor, and Foreign Investment in Africa (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2017) 5