Thinking Like a Political Scientist ─ A Practical Guide to Research Methods

Each year, tens of thousands of students who are interested in politics go through a rite of passage: they take a course in research methods. Many find the subject to be boring or confusing, and with good reason. Many of the standard books on research methods brim with dry technical definitions and focus heavily on statistical analysis to the exclusion of other methods. They fail to highlight the most important concepts. This approach not only dulls potential enjoyment of the course, but prevents students from mastering the skills they need to engage more directly and meaningfully with a wide variety of research.

With wit and practical wisdom, Christopher Howard draws on more than a decade of experience teaching research methods to transform a typically dreary subject and teach budding political scientists the critical skills they need to read published research more effectively and produce better research of their own. The first part of the book is devoted to asking three fundamental questions in political science: What happened? Why? Who cares? In the second section, Howard demonstrates how to answer these questions by choosing an appropriate research design, selecting cases, and working with numbers and written documents as evidence. Drawing on examples from American and comparative politics, international relations, and public policy, Thinking Like a Political Scientist highlights the most common challenges that political scientists routinely face. Each chapter concludes with exercises so that students can practice dealing with those challenges.

Christopher Howard is the Pamela C. Harriman Professor of Government and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. He is the author of two books, The Welfare State Nobody Knows and The Hidden Welfare State, and the coeditor of The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Social Policy.?
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