Empirical political analysis (1st ed )

A comprehensive and accessible research methods textbook written specifically for students of politics, Empirical Political Analysisintroduces a widerange ofresearch techniques comprehensively and accessibly.

With a balanced focus on quantative and qualitative analysis, the book follows the research process from start to finish, offering a solid research foundation for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

This is a European adaptation of the successful US textbook by C. R. Brians, Lars Willnat, J. B. Manheim and R. C. Rich. James C. Babb has made various sympathetic updates to the text, including case studies with European examples. Three new chapters have been added to the book - on discourse analysis, small n case study research, and hermeneutics.

Empirical Political Analysis - International Edition

SectionI.Theory and Research in Politics

1. The Research Process

2. The Theoretical and Conceptual Context of Political Research

3. Techniques of Systematic Bibliographic Search

Section II. Research Design

4. Abstract to Concrete: Operationalization and Measurement

5. Working From a Plan: Considerations in Research Design

6. Experimental Research Design

Section III. Quantitative Data

7. Who, What, Where, When: The Problem of Sampling

8. Survey Research

9. Scaling Techniques

10. Sources and Applications of Aggregate Data

11. Data Preparation and Data Processing

Section IV. Quantitative Analysis

12. Content Analysis

13. Quantitative Comparative Research

14. Social Network Analysis: Finding Structure in a Complex World

15. Describing the Data: The Construction of Tables and Charts

Section V. Statistical Techniques

16. Statistics I: Summarizing Distributions on One Variable

17. Statistics II: Examining Relationships between Two Variables

18. Statistics III: Examining Relationships among Several Variables

Section VI. Qualitative Methods

19. Elite and Specialized Interviewing

20. Focus Group Methodologies

21. Direct Observation and Political Ethnography

22. Revealing Political Understanding: Discourse Analysis

23. Hermeneutics and Interpretation in Political Research

Section VII. Reporting the Results

24. Writing (and Reading) the Research Report

25. Overview