Elements of a Research Paper by Glenn Rivera

Elements of a Research Paper
Glenn G. Rivera
Licensed Professional Teacher (LPT)
Head Executive – Rivera Educational
Consultancy and Employment
Serendipity Services (RECESS)
BA Political Science Cum Laude (University of the
Philippines – Diliman)

OUTLINE OF THE PRESENTATION
I. First of all: What is Research???
A. What is a concept?
B. What is a Variable?
C. Example of concept and variable
II. What is Plagiarism? How should it be dealt with?
III. What is a Topic Outline?
A. Examples of a Topic Outline
B. Another Example of an Outline
IV. The Research Problem
V. Review of Related Literature
VI. Research Methodology (Research Design and
Analysis)
VII. Presentation, Analysis and Interpretation of Data
VIII. Bibliography (or References)

First of all: What is Research???
• Research, which is a systematic process of
observing, explaining and documenting the nature
of a particular phenomenon (whether social,
political, educational, psychological, medical,
natural, environmental, etc.), constitutes such
requirements as the problem statement, review of
related literature, research design, methodology,
data collection, data analysis, statement of theory
and policy implications, bibliography or references,
and perhaps the most important of all, the research
or topic outline.

• These words may be familiar to almost every
political and social science researcher as they are
written in most introductory books on political
science research.

• I just have to add another thing: the concept of
“bias” which is either explicit or implicit in many
research papers. To some, it is important that
researchers have no biases. In fact, many would
insist that it be not manifested in any academic
research endeavor.

• But after fifteen (15) years of studying and
working as a Political Science graduate, I have
come to the conclusion that much of political
research rests on some sort of bias (some would
refer to it as “intention”) that is implicitly
embedded in the assumptions that a researcher
upholds.

• An example would be the bias towards
academically “truthful” and ideally “right”
results and implications. This kind of bias, I call
an “enlightened bias” is typical of a worthwhile
research. It now serves as one of the foundations
of my academic pursuits aside from the
legitimate assumptions of political research and
the ethics in social science research as a whole.

What is a concept?
• Being aware of the contested terms in political
science literature and trying to be as
intellectually independent as I am, I want to
define the word “concept”, in my own words, as
a phenomenon (either abstract or real) that a
particular word, phrase or any other linguistic
and communicable symbol captures in an
instant. It is thus dependent on context, whether
temporal, dimensional or spatial.

What is a Variable?
• A “variable” is an operational measure of a
concept. It makes the concept (more)
observable. Variables literally indicate variations
in the nature of a particular concept. They can be
regarded as either dependent (or endogenous),
i.e., they are to be explained or accounted for, or
independent (or exogenous), i.e., they are
thought to determine or affect the dependent
variables.

Example of concept and variable
• An example of a concept is the word “vote” and
its variable is the word and thing known as
“ballot”, which has such attributes as first ballot,
second ballot, etc. “No variable is innately either
independent or dependent” according to Phillips
W. Shively (1998: 13) in his work titled, The
Craft of Political Research, because it depends
upon a researcher how he/she would use a
particular variable.

What is Plagiarism? How should it be
dealt with?
Plagiarism is the act, or even crime, of “stealing” or
consciously using other people’s works and ideas
and passing them off as your own. In the case of
writing an academic paper, it can be avoided by
observing formal citation and bibliographical
reference measures. The authorities and teachers
have warned the students against it and they stress
that it be dealt with properly by investigating the
culprit first and then executing the appropriate
judgment, such as expulsion from the college or the
university concerned, based on the available
evidence and third party testimonies.

What is a Topic Outline?
• A topic outline, or simply an “outline” is a list of
topics in particular order that you need to explore in
your research study
• It must be topical to avoid clutter of words that
usually happen when you make sentence outlines
• It can be either inductive or deductive in nature.
However, most outlines are deductive
• Outlines follow the usual pattern used in English
literature and grammar that involves the use of
Roman numerals, Arabic numbers, and letters
(uppercase and lowercase)
• It can form a huge part of the Table of Contents of
the Research Paper

Examples of a Topic Outline
I. Chapter I - Introduction
A. Objectives of the Study
B. Statement of the Problem
1. Central Research Question and Task
2. Rationale of the Study
3. Significance of the Study
4. Limitations of the Study
5. Profile of the Locale of the Study
6. Spot Map of the Locale of the Study

C. Background and Definition of Terms
1. Philippine Society
a. Rural
i. Rural-agricultural
ii. Rural-industrial
iii. Rural-service-oriented
b. Urban
i. Urban-industrial
ii. Urban-service-oriented
2. Philippine Social Stratification
a. Social Classes
i. Upper or Capitalist Class
ii. Upper Middle Class
iii. Lower Middle Class
iv. Working Class
v. Lower Class
b. Determinants of Social Class

3. Filipino Family
a. Filipino Family as a Group and Kinship System
i. Filipino family as a primary group
ii. Filipino family as bilateral
b. Characteristics of Filipino Marriage
i. Marriage as a religious-legal contract
ii. Marriage as a male-female sexual union
ii.a Monogamous
ii.b Polygynous (for Muslims)
iii. Marriage as a union of potential parents’
roles
iv. Marriage as a public affair

c. Marital Statuses
i. Single (Parent)
ii. Married
iii. Legally separated or annulled
iv. Widow/Widower
v. Live-in Partners
d. Filipino Family Structures
i. Nuclear or Conjugal Family
i.a Family of orientation
i.b Family of procreation
ii. Extended Family
ii.a Consanguine family
ii.b Joint family
ii.c Stem family

e. Housing and Residential Proximity
i. Patrilocal
ii. Matrilocal
iii. Bilocal
iv. Neolocal
f. Family Obligations and Activities
i. Reunion
ii. Sharing of services and gifts
iii. Household keeping
g. Role-Playing in the Traditional Filipino Family
i. Father as the “Haligi ng Tahanan” or Head of
Household
ii. Mother as “Ilaw ng Tahanan” or the caretaker of
children’s welfare
iii. Children as subordinate family members

4. Sibling
a. Definition of a sibling
b. Sibling types
i. “One-at-a-time” siblings
ii. Twins
iii. “Multiplets
5. Characteristics of Sibling Relationship
a. Co-Sibling Modeling
b. Intimate and enduring personal bond
c. Cooperative
d. Competitive

II. Chapter II – Review of Related Literature
A. Sibling Rivalry
1. Definition of Sibling Rivalry
2. Levels of Sibling Rivalry
3. Kinds of Sibling Rivalry
4. Characteristics of Each Kind of
Sibling Rivalry
B. Framework

III. Chapter III - Methodology
A. Respondents of the Study
B. Interview
1. First Stage: Finding family cases
2. Second Stage: Formulating
questions
3. Third Stage: Determining the
conceptual approaches to be used in the
qualitative analysis of the data (sibling rivalry
instances)

IV. Chapter IV – Results, Discussion and
Presentation of Data
A. Brief description of the families
B. Sibling rivalry instances
1. Family A
2. Family B
3. Family C

V. Chapter V – Summary, Conclusion, Analysis of
Data and Recommendation
A. Common Findings and Interpretation
B. Conclusion
C. Recommendation
VI. References

Another Example of an Outline
I. Section I – The Research Problem
A. Problem Statement
B. Statement of the Objective
C. Theoretical Framework
D. Definition of Terms
E. Axioms
F. Statement of the Hypotheses

II. Section II – Review of Related Literature
A. Contested Elections
B. Electoral Protest
C. Electoral Violence
D. Electoral Systems
E. Institutions, Electoral Governance and
Institutionalization

III. Section III – Research Methodology
A. Research Design
1. Time Dimension
B. Population and Cases
C. Measurement
D. Conceptualization and Operationalization
1. Validity and Reliability of Measurements
a. Construct and Content
b. “Face”
c. Criterion
E. Data-Gathering Procedure

IV. Section IV – Presentation, Analysis and
Interpretation of Data
A. Data Processing
B. Data Analysis
C. Conclusion Parameters
1. Internal and External Validity
V. Appendix
VI. Bibliography

The Research Problem
The Research Problem: Interest, Idea, Theory and
Objective

Module Objectives (Sample):
• Within a particular area of political science (or any field
applicable to your course or area of study) (e.g. Political
Dynamics, Comparative Politics, International Relations,
etc.), select three (3) specific topics of research
which you find very interesting.
• For each topic of research, formulate three (3) research
problems/questions.
• From among the nine (9) research questions you have
just formulated, select three (3) which peaks your
interest the most, and develop a research rationale
for each one of them.

Additional Considerations:
1. Sources of problems: (a) practical problems in
the field; (b) existing literature in the field; (c)
requests for research proposals; and (d)
originally generated idea.
2. Feasibility: Tradeoffs between rigor and
practicality – the question of feasibility – (a)
how long the research will take; (b) ethical
constraints; (c) necessary cooperation; and (d)
costs.

Problem Statement (Sample)
Due probably to the intellectual impact of the so-called
“globalization” that the author wants to operate as a
researcher within the area of Comparative Politics and
Government. This area offers a plethora of far-reaching,
albeit complex and mind-boggling, issues and events
that in themselves make compelling reasons for doing
research. Under it, he chose one topic of research, that
is, legislative electoral contestation in
“incomplete” regimes. The topic deals with the most
common features of a rival-motivated legislative
electoral contestation, which are electoral protest and
electoral violence.

Note: “New democracies” and “transitional
regimes” (in Figure 4) shall be collectively
referred to in this paper as “incomplete regimes”
since scholars still find it hard to determine what
exactly these regimes are consolidating into.
However, the researcher uses the three terms
interchangeably especially in situations where
writing a shorthand label (and adjective) that
denotes countries that hold elections regardless
of their quality is unavoidable.

Statement of the Objective
• The main question that the proposed research
aims to answer or, at least, develop a way of
answering is “what causes legislative electoral
contestation (i.e. electoral protest and electoral
violence) in new democratic or transitional
states?”

It implies an explanatory research because the
researcher wants to delve into the depths of
electoral violence and electoral protest and to
prove that they are not simply caused by or
correlated with sociological and cultural factors
such as warlordism, factionalism and intra-elite
conflict.

Wary of these somewhat “unalterable” factors, the
researcher tries to find a cause, possibly the
legislative electoral system (be it proportional or
non-proportional) that a country uses, that can
be reformed or manipulated in order to prevent
these phenomena from occurring over and over
again especially here in the Philippines,
assuming that they are “real” political
pathologies.

Note: There is yet a need to assume that electoral
violence and electoral protest are “real” political
pathologies because not all people agree that they
are so. Some would take these phenomena for
granted and dismiss them as part of the political
game or culture and, thus, inevitable. However, as
far as Mozaffar and Schedler (2002) are concerned,
these manifestations of electoral disputes point to
the “uncertainty” or the ineffectiveness of electoral
institutions and governance.

He believes that the mere existence of disputes
indicates that something is wrong with a
country’s institutions and formal political
practices.

In addition, he wants to observe whether the two
features of contested elections are related to each
other. The attainment of this last goal would help
ascertain the nature of a country’s level of
institutionalization (at the electoral level), which is
the degree to which its institutions and electoral
governance effectively legitimize the outcome of
elections and quell the occurrence of informal and
illegal practices or behaviors.

Theoretical Framework
Conceptualization and Operationalization:
Constructs and Relationships

Module Objectives:
1. Based on the subsequent discussions/consultations
regarding the three research problems you developed in
Assignment Module 02, choose a research
problem/question that you will pursue during the rest of
the Course Project – Research Proposal.
2. Specify the theoretical framework that will serve as the
grounding basis of your research problem. This
framework can be a single overarching theory or a
patchwork of theories culled from existing ones – but it
must adequately “frame” all the main elements (i.e. the
concepts and the relationships between concepts) of
your research problem/question.

3. Define the main elements of your research
problem/question. Also, define each of the concepts
that you have used in your theoretical framework
and in your research problem/question – organize
these conceptual definitions along the main
research elements.
4. State the axioms associated with your specified
theory – organize these axioms along the main
research elements.
5. State the main proposition(s) that will direct your
inquiry.

6. Identify the variables that will correspond to the
main research concepts you have just defined.
7. Select the main dimensions of the variables that
you deem as the most important aspects of the
conceptualization of your main research
concepts.

8. Remember that there are variables/dimensions that can
require more than one indicator in order to yield an
adequate measurement scheme. For each of the
variables, specify the following:
a. Level of measurement (e.g. nominal, ordinal, interval,
ratio);
b. Method of measurement (instrument design will be
developed in another module); and
c. Range of values.
9. Develop the main hypothesis/hypotheses of your
research project, as directed by your main
proposition(s).

Key Terms and Concepts:
• Theory: a systematic explanation for empirical
observations.
• Concept: A word or a set of words that expresses the
general idea concerning the nature of
something, or the relation between things – “the
basic building blocks of theory”.
• Conceptualization: the clear and precise delineation
and definition of the concepts and terms that
are used in the formulation of a hypothesis.

• Operationalization: the delineation and
definition of concepts and terms in an
operational and measurable manner based on
empirical observations -- the definition of
variables.
▫ Variables
▫ Dimensions
▫ Indicators

• Axioms (or Postulates): fundamental assertions,
taken to be true, on which a theory is grounded.
• Propositions: conclusions drawn about the
relationships among concepts, derived from the
axiomatic groundwork.

• Hypotheses: tentative explanations for certain behaviors,
phenomena, or events which have occurred or will occur. A
hypothesis is the most specific statement of a problem. It is a
testable statement of a potential relationship between two or
more variables.
1. Characteristics of a good hypothesis
a. It should be reasonable, and must state, in
definite terms, the relationships between the
variables.
b. It should be testable.
c. It should be falsifiable.
d. It should follow the findings of previous
studies.

2. Functions of the hypothesis
a. The hypothesis introduces the researcher’s
thinking at the start of the study.
b. The hypothesis structures the next stages or
procedures of the study.
c. The hypothesis helps provide the format for
analysis, interpretation, and presentation of the data.

3. Types of hypotheses
a. Null: there is no existence of effect, of
interaction, of relationships, and of difference
between the concerned variables. Carries the “benefit
of a doubt”.
b. Alternative: an operational statement of
expectation based on theory. Carries the “burden
of proof”.
i. directional
ii. non-directional

Theoretical Framework (Sample)
The researcher wants to establish a causal link, or at
least a correlation, between legislative electoral
system and electoral contestation. Specifically,
he theorizes that legislative elections in new
democracies and transitional regimes are
characterized by less robust institutions and
electoral governance as well as an inappropriate
application of an electoral system compared to
established democracies.

Note: The phrase “inappropriate application of an
electoral system” reveals the major policy
implication of the research proposal. It means that if
the hypotheses were proven true, then an electoral
reform would be needed, at least, to address the
problem of electoral contestation. Speaking of
electoral reform, “in the circumstances of adopting
electoral rules in a newly democratizing country,
Taagapera and Shugart (1989: 236) indicate a
preference for small, multi-member constituencies,
with some kind of proportional electoral formula”
and “stress the need to keep it simple” (Farrell 1997:
166-167 quoting Taagapera and Shugart 1989).

These institutional weaknesses make elections to
their legislatures less honest, clean and credible
thus triggering multi-party (or two-party) and multi
candidate disputes over seats. He wants to verify the
observation that proportional electoral systems
offer a less “zero-sum” or competitive means of
electing legislators. Therefore, countries that employ
this system must have lower incidence of electoral
violence and electoral protest relative to those
that make use of non-proportional systems.

Extending the theory even further, he expects that
states that have attained a relatively high level
of institutionalization would register fewer
election-related violent incidents because the
candidates become more aware of institutional
constraints and thus would rather bring their
election-related grievances, in the form of an
electoral protest, to the proper courts or
tribunals instead of committing violent crimes.

This relationship is yet non-directional since the
pattern that may emerge during the analysis
could also suggest that higher incidence of
electoral protest relative to electoral violence
indicates an increasing level of
institutionalization.

The following causal models offer a simplified view of the
relationships between the aforesaid concepts:
legislative electoral system → electoral contestation
level of institutionalization → electoral contestation
electoral competition → electoral contestation
regime type → electoral contestation

In Figure 1, the box that depicts the effectiveness of
electoral institutions and governance represents the
role of a country’s level of institutionalization in
determining the incidence of electoral contestation.
Along with the degree of electoral competition
and regime type (in terms of civil liberties and
freedom), it serves as a contextual or control
variable that ought to be taken into account in order
to find out the significant effects of a country’s
electoral system on the incidence of electoral
contestation.

Definition of Terms
• This forms a large part of the research problem
because you need to clarify here all the words or
phrases that seem to be vague, ambiguous, or
unfamiliar in your research study or review of
related literature.
• Some terms may even be categorized or
“operationalized” in this part of the paper.
• The use of “radial” and “classical categories can
be applied here.

Definition of Terms

Axioms (Sample)
1. Gene Pilapil’s “Institutions as mediating
mechanisms between state and society”
Symbolically: Institutions ↔ Society. This means that
institutions provide the rules that influence the
strategies, actions, or behavior of social as well as
state actors. Electoral violence and electoral protest,
when considered as strategies, actions or behavior of
social as well as state actors, can thus be seen as
functions of institutions such as electoral systems.

2. Shaheen Mozaffar and Andreas Schedler’s
“democratic or substantive uncertainty”
Symbolically: “Certain” or robust electoral
institutions → “Uncertain” or unpredictable
electoral outcome. This paradox emphasizes the
role of “institutionalization” and electoral
governance in legitimizing electoral outcomes
thus preventing or, at least, reducing electoral
disputes.

Statement of the Hypotheses (Sample)
In “incomplete regimes”:
Proportional legislative electoral systems → ↓ Electoral Contestation
Non-proportional legislative electoral systems → ↑ Electoral Contestation
Electoral protest > Electoral violence ↔ High level of institutionalization
Electoral protest < Electoral violence ↔ Low level of institutionalization

Controlling for the effects of the countries’ level of
institutionalization, degree of electoral
competition, and regime type, the researcher
proposes that non-proportional electoral
systems lead to higher incidence of electoral
contestation while proportional ones, lower
incidence of electoral contestation, regardless of
whether electoral violence is lower or greater
than electoral protest.

As regards the indicator of a country’s level of
institutionalization, the hypothesis is that if a
country’s incidence of electoral protest were
greater than its incidence of electoral violence, the
level of institutionalization would be higher. The
converse will also be taken as true. This variable is
expected to vary negatively with electoral
contestation, that is, higher levels of
institutionalization would lead to lower incidence of
electoral contestation, otherwise, higher incidence of
electoral contestation.

Review of Related Literature
“As the biggest library if it is in disorder is
not as useful as a small but well-
arranged one, so you may accumulate a
vast amount of knowledge but it will be
of far less value to you than a much
smaller amount if you have not thought
it over for yourself.”
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), German
philosopher

• Also called RevLit, a review of related literature
(or review of literature), is the identification of
available documents and secondary data sources
that provide information or insights on a
particular research topic of interest. It reinforces
every stage that constitutes the research process
and a detailed literature review supports the
discussion in the majority of sections of a
research paper.

• For instance, the methodology and analysis
parts of the paper may draw some insights from
previous studies done on the same topic. It also
serves as a guide on how to do the proper
investigation based on how other researchers
went about their works.

• Thus, a RevLit is both a conduct and a statement
regarding a particular research. The relevance of
writing a review essay in connection with doing
political science research rests on several
grounds. First, the review helps a researcher
refine the chosen topic or area of inquiry.
Second, it can aid him/her in finding more
studies conducted under the same subject.

• Third, it can provide a scholarly support or
theoretical justification for the conduct of the
study. Lastly, it can help a researcher avoid the
errors committed or the problems encountered by
preceding researchers in dealing with the same
subject and eventually mitigate the effects of a
terrible waste of precious resources.

Module Objectives:
1. Review the relevant literature related to your
chosen research topic. All possible sources must
be explored, including books, journals, websites,
periodicals, etc.
2. The literature cited must be from reputable and
appropriate sources and you must have a
minimum of ten (10) references.

3. The literature must be condensed in an
intelligent fashion with only the most relevant
information included. Citations must be in the
correct format.
4. Where applicable, state the author’s main
research objectives, main hypotheses, and
overall research design.

5. Finally, the material should be organized
thematically within the review write-up, not
chronologically or by author. This should
include a narrowing down of the topic to what
you intend to investigate in your specific study
(funnel approach), concepts and relationships,
and relevant theoretical frameworks. The review
should also state how your particular study
could contribute to the stream of knowledge
within specific fields.

Guidelines and Additional Considerations:
1. Guide questions from Babbie, p. 113: “What have others
said about this topic? What theories address it and what
do they say? What research has been done previously?
Are there consistent findings, or do past studies
disagree? Are there flaws in the body of existing
research that you feel you can remedy?
2. For helpful hints in finding sources, read Babbie,
Appendix A: “Using the Library” and Burnham et al, Ch.
8: “The Internet and Political Research”. .
3. The most complete guide is Hart (1998).

Research Methodology (Research
Design and Analysis)
Module Objectives:
Specify the following elements of your research design:
1. Purpose of Research: Although the main emphasis of
the course project is on explanatory research, it is
inevitable that some aspects of your research will be
descriptive and/or explanatory. Based upon your
Research Problem, identify the fundamental aspects of
your “Answer” and explain why a specific aspect is
descriptive, exploratory, or explanatory.

2. Units of Analysis: There may be several units
of observation and analysis for the particular
research problem that you have chosen.
Describe each of these units, and state the
rationale of your choices. Furthermore, state
how your choices will not lead you to the errors
of ecological fallacy and reductionism.

3. Time Dimension: Describe the time aspect of
your study (e.g. cross-sectional or longitudinal:
trend, cohort, and panel), and explain why your
design choice is the most appropriate for your
particular study.
4. Research Method: Specify the data collection
method(s) that you will use in your study (e.g.
experiments, survey research, field research, content
analysis, existing data research, comparative
research, evaluation research) – to be further
refined in Module 07.

5. Population and Sampling: Briefly specify your
intended study population. In addition, give an
overview of your sampling strategy.
6. Data Processing: Describe how you plan to “clean-
up” and organize your collected data.
7. Analysis: Develop your strategy for describing your
data and for testing your hypotheses.
8. Application: Specify how you plan to report the
results of your study.

Subjects for Study: Population and Sampling
Module Objectives:
A. Define the following components of your
research study:
1. The Theoretical Population: “Who do you want
to generalize to?”
2. The Study Population: “What population can
you get access to?”
3. The Sampling Frame: “How can you get access
to them?”
4. The Sample: “Who is in your study?”

B. Specify the sampling design that you will use,
discuss the rationale of your choice, and
delineate its strengths and limitations within the
parameters of your research design.
C. Threats to External Validity: Discuss the
pertinent issues concerning external validity –
“the degree to which the conclusions in your
study would hold for other persons in other
places and at other times” – that is inherent in
your choice of study sample.

Measurement and Data Collection Methods
“Men who wish to know about the world
must learn about it in its particular
details.”
- Heraclitus (c. 535-c. 475 B.C.), Greek
philosopher.

Module Objectives:
A. Validity of Measurements: Briefly discuss the
following validity issues that are relevant to your
measurement components.
1. Construct validity: “How well did you translate
your ideas or theories into actual measures?”
2. Face validity: “How does your
conceptualization and operationalization fit within
the common agreements (critical intersubjectivity)
and your own individual mental images?”

3. Criterion (predictive) validity: “What
external criteria can you use, if any, to validate
the main concepts of your study?”
4. Content validity: “How much do your
measures cover the range of meanings included
within your concepts?”

B. Reliability of Measurements: Discuss the
reliability issues that are relevant to your method of
measurement? How are you going to resolve any
potential problems in reliability?
C. Questionnaire Construction: Create a
flowchart containing the main components of your
questionnaire. Draft a sample questionnaire to be
used in your data collection/survey.
D. Data Collection Procedures: Describe how you
are planning to manage and conduct the data
collection stage of your project, including
preparations before the field, personnel
management, and other issues involving logistics.

Additional Considerations:
(1) Reread Babbie, Chapter 5:
Conceptualization, Operationalization, and
Measurement, pp. 118-149; Chapter 9: Survey
Research, pp. 242-280.

(2) Data collection methods: Issues in Survey
Methodology
• Population: Can the population be enumerated?
Is the population literate? Are there language
issues? Will the population cooperate? What are
the geographic restrictions?
• Sampling: What data about the sample is
available? Can respondents be found? Who is the
respondent? Can all members of population be
sampled? Are response rates likely to be a problem?

• Questionnaire: What types of questions can be
asked? How complex will the questions be? Will
screening questions be needed? Can question
sequence be controlled? Will lengthy questions be
asked? Will long response scales be used?
• Content: Can the respondents be expected to know
about the issue? Will respondent need to consult
records?
• Bias: Can social desirability be avoided? Can
interviewer distortion and subversion be controlled?
Can false respondents be avoided?

Research Design (Sample)
The purpose of the proposed research is
explanatory in that it endeavors to explain the
occurrence of a behavioral pattern within the
context of a rival-motivated contested
election (i.e. electoral contestation). The
main independent variable that has been
identified is the electoral system, which has two
secondary categories: “proportional” and “non-
proportional.”

As suggested by Pennings et al. (1997), an
explanatory or “testing”-oriented type of
research aims at establishing causality.
Moreover, since the research question borders
on the “general”, the method of research design
that is most appropriate to use is the Most
Similar Systems Design (MSSD) or the Method
of Difference.

It takes into account “a large or optimal number of
cases/systems that are contextually similar with
only a few variables that differ amongst each other”
(Pennings et al. 1997; 45). The basic assumption is
close to the econometricians’ ceteris paribus clause.
Thus, two problems may arise: one is because of
the assumed control of the context (too many cases
and too few variables) and the other is because of
the broad definition of concepts that are
understood to be applicable to many different
political systems (internal validity).

An explanatory research “is often used for policy
analysis and focuses on discerning the effects of the
implementation process, and less on explaining
what has happened” (Pennings et al. 1997: 14).
Pennings et al. further discuss that:
“[I]f we aim at explanation, the primary goal of the
research is then to understand the working of a
political and social system by means of modeling
politics in a comprehensive but parsimonious
fashion” (emphasis added)

It is apparent that the method of data collection is
a marrying of the comparative and statistical
approaches to politics. Searching through
already existing multiple data sources and
statistics is therefore inevitable when using this
kind of method. For instance, the sources of
electoral contestation (rates), whether electoral
protest or electoral violence, do not only include
electoral commissions, tribunals or police files
but also national statistics offices, media feeds or
reports, death certificates, among others.

Trying to validate the claim that electoral systems
affect the types and extent of electoral
contestation, the researcher aims at comparative
analysis because an assessment of one system
alone cannot suffice a thorough explanation.
This is important especially if one wants to prove
that the single-member district-based plurality
electoral system that our country is using
prolongs the high degree of electoral rivalry,
thus triggering the proliferation of electoral
cases and, worse, violence.

Time Dimension
As suggested by Pennings et al. (1999: 49-54), when
the dimensions of a research design deal with both
space and time, the choice is between a pooled time-
series or time series via Qualitative Case Analysis
(QCA). Since the researcher prefers to use a Most
Similar Systems Design (MSSD) or Method of
Difference, which implies the inclusion of a large
number of cases and a reduction of “similar”
contextual variables, the easier way to study the
cases is by means of a cross-sectional analysis,
especially if the level of analysis is only behavioral
and not so much process-oriented.

This comes with the identification and isolation of
a spatially constrained type of independent
variable, which is the electoral system. But if the
available resources would warrant its use and if
we want to consider the developments over time
(e.g. every electoral period) of the pattern of
behavior (e.g. electoral contestation) under
scrutiny, a longitudinal (trend) type of analysis
is preferable to a cross-sectional one.

Such a type of analysis could compare the effects
of the process of institutionalization over time
and show if “incomplete regimes” are capable of
exhibiting a changing relative incidence of the
two categories of electoral contestation. The
following hypothetical graphs would make the
preceding ideas clearer. In Figure 5, the objects
of comparison are the cases (i.e. the “sets” of
legislative electoral candidates) and not the
electoral periods (e.g. 1979-1989, 1990-2000,
2001-2011 and so on).

Figure 6 presents a hypothetical graph of a
longitudinal (trend) form of data presentation,
where the objects of comparison are electoral
periods. The researcher leaves the longitudinal
treatment of electoral contestation to other
scholars who might bother analyzing this pattern
of behavior as it progresses…

Country-by-country graphs showing the intensity
of institutionalization (at the electoral level) as
well as electoral contestation can also be
furnished (by other scholars). The objects of
comparison are therefore the national legislative
(or general) election years. It should be noted
that an “electoral period” (or a set of national
election period) at the cross-national
comparative level of observation is distinct from
an “election year” (or a national election period).

For purposes of comparison, an electoral period
considers the fact that not all national legislative
elections are held simultaneously. For instance,
the Philippine Republic holds a general election
every six (6) years while other countries may do
so every four (4), five (5) or more years. A cross-
sectional type of analysis does not necessarily
mean that the time dimension of a cross-country
comparison is fixed, i.e. that the cases manifest
the behavioral pattern simultaneously.

If a researcher is not yet content with the
previously mentioned considerations and
analyses, he/she may venture into the analysis of
electoral contestation at other levels of the
government. For instance, an analysis of
electoral contestation, especially rival-
motivated, would be very fruitful and exciting at
the gubernatorial, mayoral, and other lower
electoral levels! He/she may compare each level
and find out which one is more or less prone to

Electoral contestation can occur before, during or
after the national legislative elections. It is thus
important to differentiate one from the others.
• Pre-election stage – covers the period between the
filing of certificates of candidacy and the election
day(s)
• Election stage – covers the period between the
actual date(s) of elections and the proclamation of
winners (and losers)
• Post-election stage – covers the immediate period
after the proclamation of winners and can extend up
to the last incident of electoral contestation

In addition, two types of contesting candidates
exist depending on the period within which they
initiated the act as well as the prospects of
winning. One is a potential loser and the other is
either an actual or a “cheated” loser. The former
contests an election before it takes place while
the latter does so after the election.

Population and Cases
Defining the population and sampling are crucial,
even more, in comparative research, which usually
considers more than one country, setting,
phenomena, cases and periods. This consideration
concerns directly the “units of observation” or the
cases, which should be able to “travel” across both
time and space. A distinction is made between all
relevant cases (in relevant periods) and all cases
present in reality.

As advised by Pennings et al. (1997: 28) the closed
universe type of identifying the population is the
one that is most appropriate for this proposed
research. This means that there is a need to
include as many, if not all, relevant cases in
relevant periods as possible.

This is apparent in the type of theory that is being
proposed, i.e. a middle-range theory, which
“claim[s] to be explanatory for a certain class of
cases…for which specific hypotheses are
developed and specified in terms of variables”
(Pennings et al. 1997: 43). This implies that
sampling per se may not be needed since the
relevant cases could include the entire
“population of discourse”. In this case, it is safe
to make generalizations about the whole
collection of cases.

Some of the criteria for the selection include the
following. The “sets” of candidates must belong
to all of these.
• New democratic or transitional regime – one
that has undergone a change in regime,
specifically from a “nondemocratic” to a
democratic type, for the past thirty (30) years
• Countries that have national legislative branches
that are subject to elections after several years

• Countries that make use of either a proportional
or a non-proportional electoral system. If the
members of the legislature are elected via mixed
or different electoral systems, a refinement must
be made such that only those sets of candidates
that are large enough to ‘represent’ the entire
population of a country are included. For
instance, the senatorial (upper house) and party-
list (lower house) candidates running for the
Philippine Congress will not be included

• Countries that have comparable levels of
institutionalization, that is, each of them has, at
least, an election management body, political
institutions, and rule-enforcing agencies to start
with
• Countries that allow a safe access to various
sources of information and statistics, such as the
number of candidates and parties, electoral
deaths, and electoral cases filed before electoral
tribunals

The cases to which the response (electoral
contestation) and explanatory (electoral system)
variables apply are both spatially and temporally
constrained, that is, they are available only when
legislative electoral exercises are held in new
democratic and transitional regimes. There is
therefore a limit with regard to whom the
researcher wants to draw conclusions about.
Since he aims at a cross-country comparison, the
population cannot easily be taken as
homogenous.

It is thus necessary that he divide it into sets that
represent the cases for each country. A set is
composed of the candidates who ran, run, or will
run for legislative offices in “incomplete regimes”.
For purposes of this research proposal, the universe
of discourse consists only of the entire collection of
the sets of legislative electoral candidates in
incomplete regimes. It is up to other scholars
whether or not they will extend the boundary of
investigation and include all the sets of legislative
electoral candidates across the population of all
“democratic” regimes.

• Treating the proposed research as a pioneering
work under the subject of electoral contestation,
the researcher admits that it will be difficult to
include as many cases in relevant periods as
possible because there are no existing compiled
data (such as electoral violence and protest
rates) yet. Unlike in the areas of economic
growth, electoral cycles and civil liberty, the area
within which he wants to operate remains a
neglected dimension in the comparative study of
both elections and democratization.

That is why, to avoid the difficulties of haphazard
sampling, he also wants to recommend that each
country’s government or election management
body have a record of its incidence of electoral
contestation. Or, if it hesitates to do so, an
international election monitoring organization
like the International Foundation for Election
Systems (IFES) can furnish its own data sets.

Similar to corruption perception, Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), Gross National Product (GNP),
and civil liberties and freedom, electoral
contestation demands an inter-organizational
and expensive venture. Trying to minimize the
costs of gathering the necessary data, the
researcher would have never been at a great
disadvantage if the data were available since he
would not need to do the data gathering himself.
Having the data at hand could greatly facilitate
the testing of the hypotheses.

Measurement
Pennings, et al. (1999) identify three relevant
“units” which are important in conducting a
comparative-empirical analysis. These are the
units of variation, observation and
measurement. Table 8 presents these
classifications, their characteristics and the
anticipated “units”.

Table 9 presents the main concepts, variables,
operational definitions and the corresponding
measuring instruments. Here, the concepts also
assume the characteristics of variables. They are
thus less vague than those concepts that climb
up higher ladders of generality and that need
different sets of variables to explain their nature
or occurrence.

For the dependent variable (electoral
contestation), the level of observation or analysis
is not the behavior per se but the “behavioral
pattern”, i.e. the tendency for each “set” of
individuals (e.g. the legislative electoral
candidates) to contest elections, by means of
either electoral protest or electoral violence.

In terms of the quantitative dimension of the
electoral contestation data, the researcher opted
to use a ratio level of measurement since ratios
or rates are mathematically convenient to use for
comparative purposes because the denominators
can control immediately for the differences in
the total number of legislative electoral
candidates that new democratic countries
register during an electoral period.

These rates are akin to unemployment rates,
crime rates, among other socioeconomic rates,
because the number of individuals observed to
be manifesting a certain behavior (e.g. the
unemployed) is divided by a baseline or overall
number of individuals expected to manifest such
a behavior for a certain period of time (e.g. the
labor force).

As for the independent variable (the electoral
system), the unit of analysis is the “institution”.
The researcher opted to take its two categories
as qualitative or nominal variables. The scheme
of grouping new democratic countries is based
on which countries have been identified in the
existing literature or data as using which type of
electoral system.

This will enable him to code groups of countries,
based on the type of system that they use, using
dummy variables: 1 for the observed group or
those countries which employ proportional
electoral systems and 0 for the reference group
or those countries which make use of non-
proportional electoral systems.

For the control variables Z1, Z2, and Z3, the first
one will be analyzed at the “process” level, the
second, at the “behavioral pattern” level, and the
third, at the “institutional” level.

Due to the lack of previous empirical investigations
into the concept of institutionalization the way he
wants to analyze it, the researcher would like to
create a “proxy” indicator for it. It is the incidence
of electoral protest relative to electoral violence.
The underlying assumption is that institutions are
supposed to be followed or complied with in order
for them to be regarded as effective, legitimate or
robust. They are irrelevant if social as well as state
actors do not observe or follow them.

Since in most democratic countries, there are
rules to start with, a good measure of its level of
institutionalization would be the degree to which
such rules are enforced and binding. It is thus
logical to think that those countries that are able
to enforce their formal rules (i.e. they are
followed) and are able to curb the practice or
occurrence of informal, illegal and non-
institutional practices must have higher levels of
institutionalization.

At the electoral level, this process can be observed
in terms of the incidence of electoral protest
relative to electoral violence. Electoral violence
is considered non-institutional, illegal, informal
or even criminal whereas electoral protest is not.
Therefore, higher electoral protest rates relative
to electoral violence rates would mean a high
level of institutionalization; otherwise, a low
level of institutionalization.

This way, the use of the two rates is maximized
since they not just serve as the components of
electoral contestation but could also indicate the
existence of another variable. These rates are
assumed to have a spurious negative
correlation. Hence, the relationship between
these two categories of contestation indicates
that a third variable is affecting their incidence.
It is fair to assume that this third variable must
be the level of institutionalization.

The level of institutionalization is measurable at both
the ordinal and interval levels. A high level of
institutionalization (for every country) can be coded
as ordinal category 2 while a low level of
institutionalization, 1. However, if someone wants to
have a more precise measure so to account for the
disparity in the rankings of different countries in
terms of their levels of institutionalization, he/she
may subtract the electoral violence rates from the
electoral protest rates and add the resulting
difference to a starting point, e.g. 1.

For instance, a 0.85 E. P. rate minus a 0.52 E. V.
rate equals 0.33, which number will then be added
to 1. Thus, the level of institutionalization for a
country would then be 1 + 0.33 = 1.33. (See pages
51 to 54 for further discussion). Positive values
indicate higher additional points for a country’s
initial level of institutionalization while negative
values, minus points.

This is how the researcher interprets numerically
the proposition made by Pilapil (2006: 91), when
writing about the “alignment” of formal rules with
informal rules, that when “a significant gap or an
outright conflict” exists “between the formal rules
and the informal norms then, there is a low level of
institutionalization.”

By doing this kind of scoring scheme, the “true” level
of institutionalization that a country has attained for
a particular electoral period will be approximated
by first holding the other components of
institutionalization as constant for all countries,
which in this case, numerically equal to 1. The proxy
identity is thus:
Level of institutionalization = (other
components of institutionalization) + (E. P. –
E. V.)

Electoral competition can be modeled
mathematically using the numbers of parties
and candidates who participate in elections and
win seats. For example, those “sets” of legislative
electoral candidates, which are huge in number
and belong to numerous political parties, can be
expected to register higher rates of electoral
contestation because they have a higher
probability of contesting.

To add more flavor to this assertion, most
economic/econometric models of competition
emphasize the effect of the number of participants
(e.g. firms) and assert that the higher the number of
competitors, the greater is the degree of competition
(e.g. in a market setting). The adoption of this
market-like analogy to explain the degree of
electoral competition is justified by the fact that
elections are competitive and candidates as well as
parties struggle to win not only votes or seats, but
sometimes, favors, privileges, power, allowance,
among other perks, as well.

Thus, it is not only the number of participants that is
decisive in explaining the degree of electoral
competition but the phenomena of winning and
losing too. It is logical to assume that an electoral
game that offers a high possibility for more parties
and candidates to win seats would be less
competitive whereas another that allows for more
candidates and parties to lose would be more zero-
sum. In the latter, the participants have more stakes
in the electoral game because the seats, as main
objects of competition, appear to be scarcer.

Imagine a party that obtains just a plurality of the
entire votes. It could obtain a huge “bonus” in
terms of seats. This bonus would have been
allocated to other parties who also received a
considerable amount of votes. In such a case,
many different strategies may proliferate in
order for political parties as well as candidates to
secure their victory or, at least, “eliminate” their
opponents. These game-theoretic assumptions
are modeled mathematically in Tables 9 and 10.

As noted above, the rankings or indicators of the
contextual variable Z3 = Regime type are based
on Freedom House Civil Liberties Index. New
democracies are those which Freedom House
codes as “free” and which have experienced a
major change in regime over the past twenty
years while transitional regimes are those which
have also undergone regime change but are
coded as either “partly free” or “not free”
(Mishler and Rose 2001).

Conceptualization and Operationalization
Although the research proposal deals more with
“quantities” rather than “qualities”, it is still crucial
that the researcher describe properly the concepts
that he is using. Accordingly, the term “contested
election” (not to be confused with the term
“electoral contestation”) is best understood as a
phenomenon or something that occurs in the
abstract world while “electoral contestation” is the
behavioral pattern that individuals or “sets” of
individuals exhibit in reaction to or within the
context of that phenomenon.

Both manifest in formal (i.e. legal or institutional)
and informal (i.e. illegal, non-institutional or
even criminal) ways. Electoral protest is on one
side of the coin while electoral violence is on the
other. The former deserves only a descriptive
type of research when taken singly because it has
a precise definition provided by law dictionaries
and legal documents. The latter still lacks a
precise description that is why more exploratory
research is needed to understand fully the
phenomenon.

In the researcher’s case, he still stumbles around
the problem of specifying who or what the
proper units of observation would be: whether
the perpetrators or the victims. However, he
believes that looking at the victims would
guarantee his security since studying the
perpetrators of violence might endanger both
parties and, worse, himself. Besides, he intends
to focus only on the candidates and not on their
hired killers (if they have), private armies or die-
hard supporters.

Of course, a very unsafe assumption is inherent in
this stance. How can he be so sure that the
legislative electoral candidates are the ones who
killed, ordered to kill, inflicted pain on, or
threatened other candidates? Well, the basic
assumption is that they are the ones who would
benefit more from the victims’ forced removal
from the electoral race. Furthermore, it is
difficult to assume the task of a police
investigator when the researcher is not trained
to be so.

He might end up barking up the wrong tree. Still,
he is open to other assumptions aside from the
ones that are inherent in the four types of
contested election: voter-motivated, state-
motivated, rival-motivated, and third party-
motivated or “provocative”.

Validity and Reliability of Measurements
In order to validate the measurements of the concepts
that are used, it is necessary that the definition of
the concepts be explained. The definition involved
both the formalist and the comparativist processes.
The former pertains to the way the researcher
adopted ordinary social concepts and explicated
their meanings so to minimize their ambiguity. For
instance, in Figure 7 the term election is not
considered as referring to a single phenomenon but
to two phenomena depending on how the nature
and the results of the primary category are viewed
and accepted by the participants (e.g. candidates).

The other process relates to how the concepts can
“travel” across different political systems and
periods. This is connected with the research
method that will be adopted (i.e. cross-country
comparison). For instance, the primary
categories election (Figure 7), contested election
(Figure 3) and rival-motivated contested
election (Figure 8) occur in most democratic,
“incomplete” and even some authoritarian
regimes.

However, the distinction and/or contrast between
a legitimate election and a contested election is
limited to the first two types of regimes because
authoritarian regimes seldom, if at all, hold
“competitive” elections and thus oftentimes
quell any form of electoral contestation that
might threaten the ruling government.

The term “contested election” is the opposite of
the term “legitimate election”, whose results are
“accepted” by both the winners and the losers as
well as by other members of society concerned.
Within the concept of contested election are four
other categories delineated in terms of “who” the
contesting actors are. These are radial secondary
categories in that their attributes are built in or
embedded in the definition of the primary
category.

Among the four, one category that will serve as the
main topic of the research proposal was chosen
and established as another primary category.
This category, rival-motivated contested
election, encompasses two opposite secondary
categories: electoral protest and electoral
violence. This time, the researcher opted to take
the behavioral pattern that characterizes the
phenomenon “contested election”, that is,

This choice was made to reflect the behavioralist
stance of the new institutional approach that he
is employing. Thus, the secondary categories
electoral violence and electoral protest will no
longer be treated as phenomena per se but as
behavioral patterns common among a set of
individuals.

Construct and Content
The first way to evaluate whether the indicator of a
concept (e.g. electoral contestation) under scrutiny
is valid is to know if there exists a logical or
theoretical connection between that indicator and
the concept. Since the definition of (rival-motivated)
electoral contestation or contested election contains
the word dispute, a valuable operational measure of
the concept/variable would be the degree to which
actors (e.g. the legislative electoral candidates)
manifest such either formally or informally.

This distinction between formal and informal
disputes is a strong sign that the researcher is
working within the political science-inspired
new institutional approach. Accordingly, the two
kinds of disputes depict the two broad choices or
strategies available to candidates if they want to
contest an election.

Transforming the two categories into quantitative
measures, the researcher needed not only to count
those candidates who contest elections by means of
either electoral protest or electoral violence but also
to control for the differences in the sets’ total
number of candidates. Thus, he preferred to use
rates instead of discrete variables only. The ratio of
the sum of contestants and “victims” of electoral
violence to the total number of candidates in a set
represents the incidence of (legislative) electoral
contestation in a country.

In the case of electoral violence, it is safer to consider
the victims rather than the perpetrators. In addition,
the scope of victimization is limited to those who
were, are, or will be killed and injured in order to
highlight the “intensity” of electoral violence similar
to that of electoral protest. Intensity refers to the
degree to which a candidate was, is or can be
disqualified and thus removed from the electoral
race. A candidate’s filing an election protest is
tantamount to the “attempt” to disqualify a co-
candidate and winning such is equivalent to the
highest degree of electoral contestation via electoral
protest.

Similarly, a candidate’s injuring another candidate
is identical to the attempt to remove (forcefully)
the latter from the electoral game while the act
of and success in killing that opponent serves as
the most intense form of contestation whence
the victim is completely denied the prospect of
winning. The proposal, however, concerns
primarily the incidence of electoral contestation
regardless of its intensity.

Other measures of violence such as verbal
intimidation, (death) threats, blackmail, abduction,
and so on are not considered because they are either
less intense or difficult to ascertain. Having these as
part of the data might compromise the kind of data
collection method that the researcher wants to make
use of, which is quite unobtrusive. He believes that
the reliability of unobtrusive measurement and data
collection, with regard to this proposal, is greater
than those that are subject to people’s perceptions,
opinions or responses.

“Face”
Considering the fact that the researcher discovered
“electoral protest” and “electoral violence” earlier
than he did “electoral contestation”, he is very much
sure that the two categories are related to the
concept. He just needed to coin a term that would
unite the two and the term “electoral contestation”
served his purpose so well. Jeffrey Jenkins
(undated) developed the concept fully using
electoral cases filed before electoral tribunals as
operational measures and asserted that it occurs
between legislative electoral candidates.

Flores and Villanueva (2000), supplemented the
descriptions made by Jenkins, although they had no
intellectual affinity with each other, and proposed
that electoral protest is a manifestation of an intra-
elite conflict, mostly between legislative electoral
candidates and incumbents. Since the term
“electoral contestation” is synonymous with the
phrase electoral dispute, Mozaffar and Schedler’s
(2002) discussion on the occurrence of electoral
dispute because of the uncertainty of electoral
institutions is applicable.

Based on it, the researcher had inkling that
disputes can be either formal or informal
although the authors emphasized the former, as
they want everything to be institutionalized.

The informal manifestation of electoral dispute
the researcher found in the writings of Fischer
(2002), Linantud (1998) and Villarreal (2002).
It is through Fischer that he got the notion of a
rival-motivated electoral violence and conflict.
This kind of conflict is similar to the one
proposed by Flores and Villanueva (2000) only
that it manifests in an informal, non-
institutional, illegal or criminal way.

Needless to say, it is because of the researcher’s
attempt to analyze the necessary data using
regression-ANOVA and ANCOVA that he wants
his variables to assume quantitative values aside
from qualitative ones. These values will aid him
in finding general patterns and establishing
causality by means of statistical tests, which can
readily be replicated and validated by other
scholars. The measurement scheme thus
becomes all the more reliable because of its
replicability.

Criterion
The diagrams below can enhance further the
validity and reliability of the previously
mentioned variables, indicators, and theories by
showing how the values of one variable can
relate to those of other variables. In Figure 9, the
values (or mathematical model) of electoral
competition are shown as positively related to
those of electoral contestation.

That is, the higher the number of electoral
contenders who fight over a very limited number
of seats, the higher is the rate of electoral
protest, violence or contestation. Note that the y-
axis here represents the values of the
independent variables while the x-axis depicts
the rates of the dependent variables (just like
how econometricians treat them).

In Figure 10, the categories of electoral system
interact first with the values of electoral
competition before affecting those of electoral
contestation. The researcher assumes that there
is a relationship between the variables “electoral
competition” and “electoral system”, which
indirectly affects the nature of association
between electoral competition and electoral
contestation.

Whereas electoral competition results in higher
electoral contestation at each unit increase in the
values of the latter, the electoral system “groups” the
contestation rates in such a way that the non-
proportional legislative electoral systems account
for more rates at the upper-right end of the electoral
contestation line than the proportional variants at
the lower-left end. In other words, the electoral
system’s effect on electoral contestation is assumed
or hypothesized to be working through the variable
“electoral competition”.

The relationship between a country’s level of
institutionalization and the categories of electoral
contestation is an entirely different matter even
though the former can be expected to affect also the
incidence of legislative electoral contestation in a
country. In Figure 11, the values of a country’s level
of institutionalization (at the electoral level) are
represented by the y-axis while electoral
contestation rates, by the x-axis. The areas above
and below the intersection (point E) of E. P. and E.
V. lines contain the line segments that represent the
distances between certain points in the lines.

The lengths of the horizontal and vertical distances,
e.g. line segment BC, between the E. P. and E. V.
lines below point E have to take on negative values
since adding lower E. P. rates relative to E. V. rates
results in negative values. This means that the
standard procedure of taking the “absolute value” of
the difference between two points on a line when
measuring linear distances will not be performed.
The crucial point is to keep the operational order
(i.e. Y1-Y2) of E. P. and E. V. rates every time there
is a need to subtract the two, so as to retain the
resulting mathematical sign, i.e. either positive or
negative, of the difference between them.

If not because of the sign, line segments BC and
EF would be equal, which makes no sense when
estimating the level of institutionalization. Based
on the scoring scheme,9 the signs will serve as
the main indicator of whether there is a high or
low level of institutionalization and what
operation will be carried out to quantitatively
measure this.

The differences would then be added to the fixed
score of a country prior to the assessment of its
level of institutionalization, for instance, in
Figure 12. In this case, the score to start with is 1
and adding to it a negative value represented by
line segment AB would mean a decrease in the
country’s initial level of institutionalization. The
outcome would be an increase in the country’s
incidence of electoral contestation.

The sum of the values depicted by lines E. V. and E. P.
represents the values of line E. C. Whenever E. V.
equals E. P., i. e. their lines intersect, the level of
institutionalization is 1, as there will be no point that
can be added to or subtracted from the initial score.
The heuristics simply show that when we subtract
the E. V. rate from the E. P. rate, the difference
approximates the value added to (or subtracted
from) the country’s initial level of
institutionalization, assuming that its other
components are held constant and numerically
equal to 1 across all the countries considered.

Data-Gathering Procedure
The data collection phase of the research proper will
concentrate on the following:
a) the identification of new democratic and transitional
regimes within the 1990 to 2000 (legislative) electoral
period
b) the collection of cases, i.e. the sets of legislative electoral
candidates
c) the grouping of cases into proportionally and non-
proportionally elected
d) the evaluation of each country’s electoral violence,
protest and contestation; and
e) the assessment of each country’s degree of electoral
competition, level of institutionalization and regime type

Since the method of research is largely
comparative and of a “large N” type, the
procedures of data gathering are limited to the
following options:
1) internet-based data collection – which involves
the gathering of data via the cyberspace and
entails the access to various government and
non-government websites, online journals,
reports and statistics

2) travel-based data collection – which involves the
actual collection of data from the sources identified
in Table 9, should the data be unavailable online
3) multi-sectoral approach to data collection – which
involves the recommendation that election
monitoring organizations and each country’s
election management body have their own record
and compilation of the incidence of electoral
contestation, degree of electoral competition,
electoral system and regime type

Presentation, Analysis and
Data Processing
The researcher intends to “clean up” his data
statistically using the following table. It presents
a data matrix, which includes the units of
variation, observation and measurement.
Hypothetical values for each case are provided
to give a snapshot of the data that the researcher
needs.

Data Analysis
As suggested by Pennings et al. (1999: 172), the
preferred method of data analysis for a variable-
oriented research question and design having a
nominal independent variable (i.e. type of electoral
system) and a quantitative or ratio level dependent
variable (e.g. electoral contestation) is (one-way)
analysis of variance or ANOVA. The basic task is to
compare the means of the two groups of cases and
see if there is a significant difference between them.

ANOVA can be combined with regression models
by assigning quantitative values (e.g. dummy
variables) to the categories. Agresti and Finlay
(1997, Chapters 12 and 13) provide some basic
examples of how regression can be combined
with the methods of comparing multiple group
means. For instance, to determine and control
for the effects of variables Z1, Z2 and Z3, one can
use the analysis of covariance or ANCOVA,
which requires that these control variables be
quantitative.

Manipulating the data presented above a little bit
more may facilitate the conduct of several
statistical tests and graphical presentation,
which can be performed by various statistical
softwares or packages such as Microsoft Excel,
Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS), and Statistical Analysis System (SAS).

Conclusion Parameters
To avoid ecological fallacy, the researcher
specifies that the cases, which will be observed,
are the “sets” of legislative electoral candidates.
Although Pennings et al. (1999: 37) make it clear
that the “comparative analysis of the ‘political’
always involves a multi-level type of argument,”
the researcher reiterates that the unit of analysis
is a “set” (or aggregate of individuals) and
neither an individual nor a group.

A candidate may be taken as acting alone when
contesting, independent of other legislative
electoral candidates. However, the entire “set” of
candidates will not be viewed as a unitary actor
like a party, gang or organization.

To guard against reductionism, the researcher
allows for other independent or control variables
although these are not inclusive of all, almost
unlimited, variables. However, as driven by his
objective and the supposedly raison d'être of
new institutional analysis, he selected only those
variables that are institutional or political in
nature.

Inherent in this choice is the intention to prove
(empirically and statistically) the main
theoretical assumption, if not a battle cry, of new
institutional approach that formal political
institutions (e.g. the electoral system) affect the
behavior, actions and strategies (e.g. electoral
contestation) of political and social actors (e.g.
legislative electoral candidates).

Internal and External Validity
Concerning both the would-be conclusions and
analytical methods (i.e. comparison, ANOVA
and ANCOVA), they can only be internally valid
if they hold true for and apply to, respectively,
the cases under review. Two issues address this
problem of ecological fallacy. On the one hand, it
is specified that the conclusions will only apply
to the “sets” of individuals.

The cases are the sets of legislative electoral
candidates and tell something about the rates as the
operational measure of the behavioral pattern under
scrutiny. It means that the number of individuals
observed to be manifesting electoral contestation is
divided by the total number of candidates in the set.
On the other hand, the conclusions as well as the
measurements can also have internal validity if
some relationship between the main variables can
be established after controlling for the effects of the
contextual variables.

The “comparability” of every case and (unit of)
measurement (i.e. it is present in all countries
that will be considered) serves as a conservative
measure of internal validity. It will be fair to
generalize about the cases if and only if the cases
satisfy the selection criteria presented above.

As for their external validity, the conclusions as
well as the concepts and variables are applicable
to all the sets of candidates who ran, are
running, and will run during new democratic
legislative elections. Although sampling may not
be needed, the generalizations that will be made
about the relevant cases in relevant periods can
be valid.

For instance, a cross-sectional conclusion that non-
proportional electoral systems breed electoral
contestation, even after controlling for the effects of
electoral competition, regime type (either free,
partly free or not free) and the level of
institutionalization, would be applicable to those
cases that underwent electoral exercises via that
system during the 1990 to 2000 electoral period.
The same conclusion will be taken as holding true
for all other relevant sets of candidates who ran and
will run for legislative posts prior to and beyond the
1990 to 2000 electoral period, ceteris paribus.

Bibliography (or References)
CITATIONS FORMATTING
Courtesy of Dr. William Trochim, College of
Human Ecology, Cornell University.
References
• There are really two parts to a reference citation.
First, there is the way you cite the item in the
text when you are discussing it. Second, there is
the way you list the complete reference in the
reference section in the back of the report.

Reference Citations in the Text of Your Paper
Cited references appear in the text of your paper and
are a way of giving credit to the source of the
information or quote you have used in your paper.
They generally consist of the following bits of
information:

The author's last name, unless first initials are needed
to distinguish between two authors with the same
last name. If there are six or more authors, the first
author is listed followed by the term, et al., and then
the year of the publication is given in parenthesis.
Year of publication in parenthesis. Page numbers are
given with a quotation or when only a specific part
of a source was used.
"To be or not to be" (Shakespeare, 1660, p. 241)

One Work by One Author:
Rogers (1994) compared reaction times...
One Work by Multiple Authors:
Wasserstein, Zappulla, Rosen, Gerstman, and
Rock (1994) [first time you cite in text]
Wasserstein et al. (1994) found [subsequent times
you cite in text]

Reference List in Reference Section (Bibliography)
There are a wide variety of reference citation formats.
Before submitting any research report you should check
to see which type of format is considered acceptable for
that context. If there is no official format requirement
then the most sensible thing is for you to select one
approach and implement it consistently (there's
nothing worse than a reference list with a variety of
formats). Here, I'll illustrate by example some of the
major reference items and how they might be cited in
the reference section.

The References lists all the articles, books, and
other sources used in the research and
preparation of the paper and cited with a
parenthetical (textual) citation in the text. These
items are entered in alphabetical order
according to the authors' last names; if a source
does not have an author, alphabetize according
to the first word of the title, disregarding the
articles "a", "an", and "the" if they are the first
word in the title.

EXAMPLES BOOK BY ONE AUTHOR:
Jones, T. (1940). My life on the road. New York:
Doubleday.
BOOK BY TWO AUTHORS:
Williams, A., & Wilson, J. (1962). New ways with chicken.
New York: Harcourt.
BOOK BY THREE OR MORE AUTHORS:
Smith, J., Jones, J., & Williams, S. (1976). Common
names. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
BOOK WITH NO GIVEN AUTHOR OR EDITOR:
Handbook of Korea (4th ed.). (1982). Seoul: Korean
Overseas Information, Ministry of Culture &
Information.

TWO OR MORE BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR:
Oates, J.C. (1990). Because it is bitter, and because it is
my heart. New York: Dutton.
Oates, J.C. (1993). Foxfire: Confessions of a girl gang.
New York: Dutton.
Note: Entries by the same author are arranged
chronologically by the year of publication, the earliest
first. References with the same first author and
different second and subsequent authors are listed
alphabetically by the surname of the second author,
then by the surname of the third author.

Note (Continued):
References with the same authors in the same
order are entered chronologically by year of
publication, the earliest first. References by the
same author (or by the same two or more
authors in identical order) with the same
publication date are listed alphabetically by the
first word of the title following the date; lower
case letters (a, b, c, etc.) are included after the
year, within the parentheses.

BOOK BY A CORPORATE (GROUP) AUTHOR:
President's Commission on Higher Education. (1977).
Higher education for American democracy .
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
BOOK WITH AN EDITOR:
Bloom, H. (Ed.). (1988). James Joyce's Dubliners.
New York: Chelsea House.
A TRANSLATION:
Dostoevsky, F. (1964). Crime and punishment (J.
Coulson Trans.). New York: Norton. (Original work
published 1866)

AN ARTICLE OR READING IN A COLLECTION
OF PIECES BY SEVERAL AUTHORS
(ANTHOLOGY):
O'Connor, M.F. (1975). Everything that rises must
converge. In J.R. Knott, Jr. & C.R. Raeske (Eds.),
Mirrors: An introduction to literature (2nd ed., pp.
58-67). San Francisco: Canfield.
EDITION OF A BOOK:
Tortora, G.J., Funke, B.R., & Case, C.L. (1989).
Microbiology: An introduction (3rd ed.). Redwood
City, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.

DIAGNOSTIC AND STATISTICAL MANUAL OF
MENTAL DISORDERS:
American Psychiatric Association. (1994). Diagnostic and
statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.).
Washington, D.C.: Author.
A WORK IN SEVERAL VOLUMES:
Churchill, W.S. (1957). A history of the English speaking
peoples: Vol. 3. The Age of Revolution. New York: Dodd,
Mead.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OR DICTIONARY:
Cockrell, D. (1980). Beatles. In The new Grove dictionary
of music and musicians (6th ed., Vol. 2, pp. 321-322).
London: Macmillan.

ARTICLE FROM A WEEKLY MAGAZINE:
Jones, W. (1970, August 14). Todays's kids.
Newseek, 76, 10-15.
ARTICLE FROM A MONTHLY MAGAZINE:
Howe, I. (1968, September). James Baldwin: At
ease in apocalypse. Harper's, 237, 92-100.
ARTICLE FROM A NEWSPAPER:
Brody, J.E. (1976, October 10). Multiple cancers
termed on increase. New York Times (national
ed.). p. A37.

ARTICLE FROM A SCHOLARLY ACADEMIC OR
PROFESSIONAL JOURNAL:
Barber, B.K. (1994). Cultural, family, and personal contexts of
parent-adolescent conflict. Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 56, 375-386.
GOVERNMENT PUBLICATION:
U.S. Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (1980).
Productivity. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office.
PAMPHLET OR BROCHURE:
Research and Training Center on Independent Living. (1993).
Guidelines for reporting and writing about people with
disabilities. (4th ed.) [Brochure]. Lawrence, KS: Author.

References for this Presentation
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Camerer, Marian. Jan 2006. “Measuring Public Integrity.” Journal of Democracy Vol. 17
No. 1,
pp. 152-165.
Coronel, Sheila S., Chua, Yvonne T., Rimban, Luz, and Cruz, Booma B. 2004. The
Rulemakers – How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate Congress. Quezon City:
Philippine Center
for Investigative Journalism.
Farrell, David M. 1997. Comparing Electoral Systems. London: Prentice Hall/Harvester
Wheatsheaf.
Fischer, Jeff. Feb 5, 2002. “ELECTORAL CONFLICT AND VIOLENCE - A Strategy for
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Jenkins, Jeffrey A. Fall 2004. “Partisanship and Contested
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(eds). 2000. Mixed-Member Electoral Systems:
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University Press.

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