The Craft of Political Research

by W. Phillips Shively, James W. Endersby

Overview

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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032414959
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/26/2025
Edition description:	11th ed.
Pages:	244
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

W. Phillips Shively is Professor of Political Science at the University of Minnesota, and has also served on the faculties of Yale University, the University of Oregon, and Oslo University, Norway. At the University of Minnesota, he has served as Provost for Arts, Sciences and Engineering, and has also been inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Teachers for his work with students.

Table of Contents

Preface     xi
Doing Research     1
Social Research     2
Types of Political Research     4
Research Mix     8
Evaluating Different Types of Research     10
Ethics of Political Research     11
Political Theories and Research Topics     13
Causality and Political Theory     14
What Does Good Theory Look Like?     15
Example of Elegant Research: Philip Converse     17
To Quantify or Not     20
Choice of a Topic     22
Engineering Research     22
Theory-Oriented Research     23
Development of a Research Design     23
Observations, Puzzles, and the Construction of Theories     25
Machiavellian Guide to Developing Research Topics     28
Further Discussion     31
Importance of Dimensional Thinking     32
English as a Language for Research     33
Ordinary Language     34
Proper Use of Multidimensional Words     37
Example of Dimensional Analysis     38
Further Discussion     40
Problems of Measurement: Accuracy     41
Reliability     45
Reliability as aCharacteristic of Concepts     46
Testing the Reliability of a Measure     47
Validity     48
Some Examples     49
Checks for Validity     51
Impact of Random and Nonrandom Errors     53
Importance of Accuracy     54
Further Discussion     56
Problems of Measurement: Precision     57
Precision in Measures     58
Precision in Measurement     62
Innate Nature of Levels of Measurement     63
The Sin of Wasting Information     64
Enrichment of the Level of Precision in Measurement     67
Examples of Enrichment     67
Quantifiers and Nonquantifiers Again     72
Further Discussion     73
Causal Thinking and Design of Research     74
Causality: An Interpretation     75
Elimination of Alternative Causal Interpretations     76
Summary     77
A Few Basics of Research Design     78
Designs Without a Control Group     79
Use of a Control Group     82
True Experiment     83
Designs for Political Research     84
Special Design Problem for Policy Analysis: Regression to the Mean      88
Use of Varied Designs and Measures     90
Example of Varied Designs and Measures     92
Conclusion     93
Holding a Variable Constant     94
Further Discussion     96
Selection of Observations for Study     97
Sampling from a Population of Potential Observations     99
Random Sampling     99
Quasi-random Sampling     101
Purposive Sampling     102
Selection of Cases for Case Studies     103
Censored Data     103
When Scholars Pick the Cases They're Interested In     104
When Nature Censors Data     106
Selection Along the Dependent Variable: Don't Do It!     106
Selection of Cases for Case Studies (Again)     108
Another Strategy, However: Single-Case Studies Selected for the Relationship Between the Independent and Dependent Variables     109
Further Discussion     110
Introduction to Statistics: Measuring Relationships for Interval Data     111
Statistics     112
Importance of Levels of Measurement     112
Working with Interval Data     113
Regression Analysis     113
Correlation Analysis     122
Correlation and Regression Compared     127
Problem of Measurement Error     130
Further Discussion     131
Introduction to Statistics: Further Topics on Measurement of Relationships     132
Measures of Relationship for Ordinal Data     132
Measures of Relationship for Nominal Data     136
Dichotomies and Regression Analysis     136
Logit and Probit Analysis     139
Multivariate Analysis     141
Conclusion     146
Introduction to Statistics: Inference, or How to Gamble on Your Research     148
Logic of Measuring Significance     149
Example of Statistical Inference     150
Hypothesis Testing     151
Null Hypothesis     152
Example: X[superscript 2]     153
Sampling Distribution     155
Importance of N     158
Problem of Independent Observations     161
Significance Test: Always Necessary?     162
Polling and Significance Tests     163
Uses and Limitations of Statistical Tests     163
Conclusion     164
Further Discussion     164
Where Do Theories Come From?     166
Selected Bibliography      170
Index     174

Preface

I wrote this little book in 1970, when I was an assistant professor at Yale University. In teaching a number of sections of "Introduction to Research" to undergraduates there, I had found that the students benefited from an introduction that emphasized the internal logic of research methods and the collective, cooperative nature of the research process. I could not find a book that presented things in this way, however, at a sufficiently elementary level to be readily accessible by undergraduates. And so I wrote this book.

It has followed me through the rest of my career so far, and has given me enormous pleasure. It has always seemed to me that it fills a needed niche, and it has been a thrill when students have told me that they have benefited from it. I am pleased that it still seems to be working for them.

While the general principles of good argument and investigation don't change, I have made a number of additions and deletions over the last couple of editions to reflect new possibilities in technique. Most importantly, I have eliminated several nonparametric measures of relationship, as these have been supplanted over the last decade by advances in least squares analysis. I have also added a very elementary introduction to logit and probit analysis, and have further strengthened my treatment of experimentation, which has been evolving in this book over the years. I have also updated a number of the examples. While I still love Converse's "Of Time and Partisan Stability," for example, it seemed to me that today's students would find more to respond to in Robert Putnam's Making Democracy Work.

As you can no doubt tell from the tone of thispreface, this is a book for which I have great affection. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed it!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the reviewers of this edition, Guy D. Whitten and Norman R. Luttbeg, both of Texas A & M University.

W. Phillips Shively

Editorial Reviews

This book distills the practical wisdom of decades of top-quality research and teaching by Phil Shively. The prose and logic are so crystalline that even a rookie can follow every argument, and the advice is so subtle and sophisticated that even the most grizzled veteran can learn from it. Nothing rivals this book as an introduction to political research.

Robert D. Putnam, Malkin Professor of Public Policy, Harvard University

Shively’s The Craft of Political Research has stood the test of time and launched innumerable research careers inside and outside of academia. The 10^th edition continues to innovate with critical topics of evaluating accurate information and sources.

Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier, Vernal Riffe Professor of Political Science, Ohio State University

Most social and behavioral scientists, and perhaps especially political scientists, encounter undergraduates eager to change the world who then face the stark reality that doing the research to know what and how to do so is hard intellectual work. The Craft of Political Research not only provides the tools and understandings to make that transition, but it also does is in such an enjoyable (but technically sound) way that students keep their enthusiasm, tempered with sound judgements about how to make the transition for idealist to sound researcher. Even more, while originally written nearly a half century ago, Shively’s commitment to updating keeps this tenth addition fresh, alive, and current.

John Aldrich, Pfizer-Pratt University Professor, Department of Political Science, Duke University

I was very fortunate to be introduced to The Craft of Political Research in my first semester in college. It has helped to shape the way I think about my own work and others’ for more than 40 years now. With this judiciously updated tenth edition, Shively continues to offer the wisest and most authoritative introduction I know to the logic and practice of political science.

Larry M. Bartels, Vanderbilt University

The Craft of Political Research remains the go-to introductory text on methods in political science. Jargon-free and accessible it teaches students how to design research and use statistics to answer theoretically important questions. The potential of experiments is highlighted, but the book also shows how to make effective use of observational data. With examples from across the discipline, Shively turns a dry topic into an exciting quest to unlock the mysteries of our political world.

Torben Iversen, Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Harvard University

From the Publisher