2. Reminders
• Steps 1 and 2
- Choice of topic
- Formulation of initial research question
= to identify a DV
= analytical question > NOT descriptive, normative or prospective
• Step 3
- Literature review
= scientific sources to define your DV and identify IVs
3. Literature review
The literature review should have helped you have a good picture of:
- What your dependent variable means (definition)
- How it has been studied in the literature – what have been the main
angles, approaches, explanations developed in the literature (list of
potential independent variables, methods, and findings)
- How it has not been studied yet (knowledge gaps)
4. Step 4: Theoretical framework
• Choice of theoretical approach
= Your choice of explanation / independent variable(s) / paradigm
How to choose? Identify:
- A gap (a missing explanation) in the literature
- An unsolved debate in the literature
- An original combination of explanations
• Your choice has implications on the 3 main debates:
- You choose a certain vision of reality
- You choose your level(s) of explanation (micro, meso, macro)
- You choose your type of reasoning (inductive vs deductive)
• Your choice has implications on the empirical strategy
5. Step 4 – Theoretical framework
• Why is it important?
- There are many IVs/explanations/approaches to one
phenomenon, as your literature review will show.
- It is never possible to fully understand / explain a social or
political phenomenon
- You will have to make choices to organise your research
- It helps you reflect on your conception of the world and of
political science
6. 3) Surrealism: S. Dali,
Persistance de la mémoire
1) Realism: J-F. Millet, Des
glaneuses
2) Impressionnism: C. Monet,
Impression soleil levant
7. 7
• Example: Explaining Transition to democracy (DV)
Approach 1 : economics
Can democratization be explained by sustained economic
growth leading to the emergence of middle class? (Huntington
1991)
Approach 2 : sociology
Can democratization be explained by the density of the network
of associations / the presence of an active and organized civil
society? (Foweraker 1989)
Approach 3 : culture
Can democratization be explained by the process of
secularization of society?
Step 4: Theoretical framework
13. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Institutionalist approach:
- Explains differences across countries
- To a lesser extent, explains differences
over time (if institutional reforms)
Source: IDEA
www.idea.int
14. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Structuralist approach
- Social structures produce inequalities among social groups
- Some social groups are less geared for politics
- Participation (and turnout) is unequally distributed across
groups
= Daniel Gaxie: le cens caché
- Explains differences across countries
- To a lesser extent, explains differences over time (if changes in
societal structure)
15. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Behavioralism
Inductive reasoning
Observation: Who votes / Who doesn’t
Identification of regularities:
- If you are a woman, you have a higher probability to abstain
- If you have a higher level of education, you have a higher probability to
vote
- If you have a lower level of income, you have a higher probability to
abstain
Explains differences between individuals
16. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Behavioralism
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
'48 '52 '54 '56 '58 '60 '62 '64 '66 '68 '70 '72 '74 '76 '78 '80 '82 '84 '86 '88 '90 '92 '94 '96 '98 '00 '02 '04 '08 '12
Males Females
ANES, 1948-2012, % OF THE GROUP WHO VOTED
17. ANES, 1948-2012, % OF THE GROUP WHO VOTED
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
'48 '52 '54 '56 '58 '60 '62 '64 '66 '68 '70 '72 '74 '76 '78 '80 '82 '84 '86 '88 '90 '92 '94 '96 '98 '00 '02 '04 '08 '12
Grade Sch./Some High Sch. High School Diploma
Some College, no Degree College Degree/ Post-grad
18. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Rational choice
- Vote if Benefits (B) > Costs (C)
- Benefits = seeing their candidate elected (collective)
- Costs = time to vote, time to get informed (individual)
Explains differences between individuals/actors
19. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Constructivism
• Partirep voter survey Belgium 2014
• Cross-table of 2 questions:
1) To what extent is it important to you that a citizen
participates in the following activities? Voting at elections (=
attitude/perception: sense of civic duty)
2) If voting was not compulsory anymore in Belgium, how often
would you still vote? (potential behavior)
Explains differences across individuals/organisations/states
20. Illustration: the case of turnout
• Potential abstention is higher among voters with a lower
sense of civic duty
Potential behaviour in case of suppression
of compulsory voting
Always Often Sometimes Never Total
Importance of
the act of
voting 1 8.6% 1.9% 7.6% 81.9% 100.0%
2 2.6% 2.6% 20.5% 74.4% 100.0%
3 14.3% 7.1% 26.8% 51.8% 100.0%
4 10.1% 15.2% 16.5% 58.2% 100.0%
5 35.8% 21.4% 19.8% 23.0% 100.0%
6 58.9% 23.9% 9.1% 8.1% 100.0%
7 77.0% 10.6% 5.6% 6.8% 100.0%
Total 49.0% 13.9% 11.0% 26.1% 100.0%
21. Illustration: turnout
• RC new institutionalism
- Voters vote when the benefits of their vote exceed the costs
- Institutions frame the costs/benefits evaluation: some
contexts/rules reduce the proportion of ‘lost’ votes
Bounded rationality
• Sociological new institutionalism
- Voters vote after a slow learning of norms and codes linked to
democracy. This explains the lower turnout rates among first-
time voters.
Explains individual behaviour in different contexts (multi-level)
23. Exercises
Identify the DV
Identify the IV
The extent to which an anti-immigrant party can
mobilize its electoral potential is higher in
proportional systems than in majoritarian electoral
systems (van der Brug, Fennema & Tillie 2005)
24. Exercises
Identify the DV
Identify the IV
Why do citizens vary in their support for European integration?
Previous research offers a variety of sometimes conflicting
explanations. Most analysis shows that the utilitarian
consequences of integrative policy provide robust explanations
for variation in support. Citizens who directly benefit from EU
policies are most supportive of the EU while those who perceive
the EU has threatening their job or salary tend to be euroskeptic
(Gabel, 1998)
25. Exercises
Identify the DV
Identify the IV
- In her book “States and Social Revolutions,” Theda Skocpol tries to explain
why and how revolutions occur. She explains social revolutions by analyzing
how the social institution of the state changed and influenced the social
change.
- In her book “Justifying interventions in Africa”, Nina Wilén answers the
paradoxical question of how to stabilize a state through external intervention
without destabilizing sovereignty. She examines the justifications for
international and regional interventions in the cases of Liberia, Burundi and
the Democratic Republic of the Congo
26. Exercises :
Identify the DV + IV
+ Theoretical approach
+ level of analysis
•This article provides a "top-down" explanation for the rapid growth of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the postwar period, focusing on two
aspects of political globalization. First, I argue that international political
opportunities in the form of funding and political access have expanded
enormously in the postwar period and provided a structural environment highly
conducive to NGO growth. Secondly, I present a norm-based argument and
trace the rise of a pro-NGO norm in the 1980s and 1990s among donor states
and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), which has actively promoted the
spread of NGOs to non-Western countries. The article ends with a brief
discussion of the symbiotic relationship among NGOs, IGOs, and states
promoting international cooperation.
REIMANN. (2006). A View from the Top: International Politics, Norms and the
Worldwide Growth of NGOs. International Studies Quarterly, 50(1), 45–68.
27. Exercises :
Identify the DV + IV
+ Theoretical approach
+ level of analysis
•The 2010–11 Arab uprisings continue to prompt a great deal of discussion. By
focusing specifically on Tunisia and Egypt, this article aims to present a more
dynamic account of revolutionary moments in these countries. It does so in two
ways. First, the changing nature of structures and mechanisms of authoritarian
domination over time is explored. Second, the convergences of different social
classes and political forces during the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt are not
treated as unique and static occurrences. By showing how the two revolutionary
networks gradually emerged and enlarged, a truer picture is thus provided. By
doing so, this article aims to contribute to a more nuanced interpretation of the
two revolutionary outbursts and to the development of the fourth generation of
revolutionary studies.
Del Panta. (2020). Cross-Class and Cross-Ideological Convergences over Time:
Insights from the Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutionary Uprisings. Government
and Opposition (London), 55(4), 634–652.
28. Exercises :
Identify the DV + IV
+ Theoretical approach
+ level of analysis
•What conditions determine whether a civil war ends in a negotiated settlement
or a military victory? The authors address this question by developing an
expected utility model of the choice between seeking an immediate settlement
or continuing to fight in anticipation of eventual victory. The model implies that
the likelihood of a settlement varies with estimates of the probability of
winning, the time required to win, the rate at which the costs of conflict accrue,
and the payoffs for victory versus settlement. Logistic regression results suggest
that a settlement becomes less likely the larger the government's army and more
likely the longer the civil war lasts. Payoff and cost variables had no effect on
the likelihood of a settlement
Mason, & Fett, P. J. (1996). How Civil Wars End: A Rational Choice
Approach. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 40(4), 546–568.
29. Exercises :
Identify the DV + IV
+ Theoretical approach
+ level of analysis
•Why, despite being contextualised alongside the Great Depression of the 1930s
and inflation and growth crisis of the 1970s, did the Great Crash of 2008-2009
not exert a similarly transformative dynamic in dominant, neoliberal, economic
ideas? Drawing on an agent-centred constructivism stressing the centrality of
crisis construction and narration, yet with particular emphasis placed upon the
incorporation of strategic processes of framing, this article provides fresh
insights into the means by which key actors exercise their agency in attempts to
ensure continuing adherence to, rather than fundamentally transforming, the
status quo. This is explored with reference to macroeconomic policy
assumptions in the IMF, an instance which provided all the pre-conditions for a
widely interpreted moment of crisis, yet which nevertheless resulted in
untransformed ideas and structures
•Lowery. (2022). Constructing Continuity: The Discursive Construction of the
Great Crash of 2008-2009 as a Non-crisis of Neoliberalism. Global Society :
Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations, 36(4), 496–515.
30. Exercises :
Identify the DV + IV
+ Theoretical approach
+ level of analysis
•This article investigates how voters decide in referendums on European integration. More
specifically, it analyses how political information influences voting behaviour. It argues that
political information conditions the way in which people make decisions in referendums.
The impact of political information is examined not only at the individual, but also at the
contextual level. It is hypothesized that variations in the context of the referendum - the
intensity of the campaign - produce differences in the way in which citizens act in
referendums. As the intensity of the referendum campaign increases, more information is
available to citizens and voters will rely more heavily on sophisticated criteria, such as
attitudes and issue positions on the European Union (EU). While the informational context
influences voting patterns, individuals also vary in their awareness of politics. It is argued
that people with high levels of political awareness receive more information and
consequently rely more on their own attitudes and less on elite cues when deciding. These
theoretical propositions are tested by analysing survey data from EU referendums in
Denmark, Ireland and Norway.
•HOBOLT. (2005). When Europe matters: The impact of political information on voting
behaviour in EU referendums. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 15(1), 85–109.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13689880500064635
31. Next weeks : start of exercises
Enrollement in an exercise group should be finalised by now!
Next week (week 7) : individual meeting (for designated students)
on FD Task 1. Invitations sent on Monday.
Week 8 : Break.
Tasks : (by 31/10, 5pm)
Submit the pre-FD form via FD platform
Submit the Critical Review on the UV
Week 9 (7 or 9/11) : Start of exercises.
32. Critical Review
• 20% of final note
• The text to review and detailed guidelines on
UV.
• Deadline 31/10.
33. Critical Review (2)
• Provides a critical analysis of a reading. The
review must emphasize: the question(s) raised
by the author(s), their theoretical approach and
related hypothesis, their data collection method,
their data analysis method, and their main
conclusion.
• Your job is to indicate whether the article is
effective at what it sets out to do. Justify your
response.
• Format : the review should not exceed 2 pages,
TNR 12, 1.5 spaced, justified text
