THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD AS AN ONGOING PROCESS
Step One: Make Observations
This is perhaps the most important but frequently forgotten steps in the
research process, and it is especially relevant for the study of comparative politics. We
cannot ask important or interesting questions (the next step) without simply observing
the world around this. While this may sound simple enough, this is actually quite
challenging when it comes to observing the focus of the study of comparative politics:
namely, other countries. In order to be a student of comparative politics, one must
have an interest in the developments and events of countries, people, and movements
around the world. In the best of worlds, we would have the means and resources to
actually go and observe the everyday lives of people in places we are interested in. If
your school has a study abroad program, this is a wonderful opportunity to do just that.
But in the absence of these opportunities, the best way to “observe” the world is simply
to consume reliable news that focuses on the international. Unfortunately, most news
sources in the United States tend to focus, for obvious reasons, on the United States.
Therefore, getting access to easily digestible and dependable news is a
challenge but not impossible. A great source for the daily happenings in places across
the globe is Al Jazeera. It should be noted that this source is funded by the Qatari
government, and is therefore subjective and its reporting on Qatar is rarely critical.
However, despite this weakness, Al Jazeera reports from some of the places on the
ground that rarely get the attention of Western news sources. In addition to reporting,
they also produce rich documentaries that go into great depth about an issue or event
in the Global South. For example, here is a sample of the stories on the front page of
the Al Jazeera at the time of publication.
• Belarus will not hesitate to use nukes if aggressed
• Investigating El Salvador’s crackdown on gangs
• Eritrea rejoins East Africa bloc after exist 16 years ago
• As a woman is jailed, UK urged to reform “outdated” abortion laws
• How do Sierra Leonean elections work? A basic guide
Regardless of the source, students of comparative politics must spend some
time simply witnessing, to the extent that is possible, the rest of the world. The next
steps in the research process allow us to take our causal observations and approach
in a more scientific way in order to produce more general theories about the way
politics works in a comparative perspective.
Step Two: The Research Question
After taking the time to really absorb the major events and their historical and
cultural roots, this should lead a researcher to ask a good question or questions.
Indeed, it would be nearly impossible not to have questions after genuinely absorbing
the world’s news for even a short period of time. Some immediate questions that come
to mind after perusing the above headlines might be:
- Why can Russia put nuclear weapons in Belarus? Are there other countries that
host nuclear weapons owned by another country?
- Who are the gangs in El Salvador and what are/were their goals? Are there
other countries that face similar challenges and how does their handling of gang
violence compare to El Salvador?
- What is the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Africa and
why did Eritrea leave it? Are there other countries that have left this organization
and why?
- What are the laws surrounding abortion in the United Kingdom and how are
they different from the laws in the United States?
- How do elections work in Sierra Leone and why? Are they similar to elections
in other countries?
Before a researcher can start thinking about describing or explaining a general
phenomenon like elections, nuclear weapons, or gang violence, one must start with
refining the question about one’s phenomenon of interest. After all, political science
research is about solving a puzzle, so we must identify a question to be answered
through rigorous research. So how do you determine what characteristics define a
good political research question?
First, a substantive and quality political science question needs to be relevant
to the real political world. It does not mean that the research questions must only
address current political affairs, although current affairs are certainly a good place to
start thinking about a general trend. If you review the sample questions above, you
can see that there are questions about the individual event or country, followed by a
more general question that the one current event might teach us more about. But
current events are not the only observations that can lead to good research questions.
In fact, many political scientists study historical events and past political behaviors.
However, the results of political science research are often relevant to the current
political environment and may come with policy implications. A political research
question that is highly hypothetical may be interesting and important on its own.
Second, as an academic discipline, political science research is a means
through which the discipline grows in terms of its knowledge about the political realm.
As such, good political science research needs to contribute to the field. Overall, a
political science research question must be a question, and this is an important point.
A question in this context must be something that the answer to such a statement has
a chance of being wrong. In other words, a research question has to be falsifiable.
Falsifiability is a word coined by Karl Popper (2008), a philosopher of science, and is
defined as the ability for a statement to be logically contradicted through empirical
testing. (Empirical analysis is defined as being based on experiment, experience or
observation; we will consider empiricism in more detail in subsequent chapters).
Importantly, some questions are inherently non-falsifiable, meaning the question
cannot be proven true or false under present circumstances, particularly questions
which are subjective (e.g. Are oranges better than lemons?) or technical limitations
(Do angry ninja-robots live in Alpha Centauri?). Consider the subjective example in
political science, a question like: Which one is better, North Dakota or South Dakota?
This question is subjective and may ultimately, if not further described or delineated,
result in nothing more than a matter of one’s taste. If the question was more refined
and not simply a case of some abstract definition of ‘better than,’ perhaps the
researcher is actually trying to ask something that can be proven: Which state is more
economically productive, North or South Dakota? From here, the researcher could lay
out metrics for what constitutes economically productive, and try to build from there.
Consider now a technical limitations problem in political science, for instance, what if
someone tried to ask: Does investing in a country’s education system always mean
they will eventually become democratic? There is two problems with this question.
First, making a blanket statement that investing in education always leads to
democracy can lend itself to problems. Will you be able to test every situation and
circumstance where education systems are invested in and democracy happens?
Second, there’s an issue with the word ‘eventually.’ A country that invests heavily in
education could become democratic 700 years from now. If the time span ends up
being 700 years, we cannot truly infer that it was the initial investment in education
that was the cause of that county’s democratic transition.
Step Three: The Literature Review
This step doesn’t appear in the graphic in Figure 6 above, but it is an essential
step in the research process. Once you’ve found a potential research question, it’s
important to consider how much you actually know about the topic, and to do a search
about any relevant previous research that has ever been done on the topic. To this
end, creating a literature review is vital to any research study. A literature review is a
section of your research paper or research process which collects key sources and
previous research on your research question and discusses the findings in synthesis
with each other. The literature review can raise both previous research that has been
done on a topic, as well as best practices regarding research methodologies given the
question you’ve chosen. In most cases, the literature review itself will have its own
introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction will explain the context of the
research question and a thesis which will tie together the research you’ve collected.
The body will summarize and synthesize all the research, ideally in either
chronological, thematic, methodological or theoretical order.
Creating a literature review depends on finding academic, peer-reviewed
sources on the general trend you are interested in learning more about. Academic
simply means that the research has been carried out in a scientific and verifiable way,
often, but not always, by a member of an academic institution. Peer-reviewed simply
means that the research has been reviewed by other experts on the topic to be sure
that the research was conducted ethically, and the results are reliable. (Important:
reliable doesn’t mean “final” or the “uncontested truth.” Good research is often
challenged and sometimes found to be inaccurate). Here are some sample peer-
reviewed articles that might help us start a literature review concerning the
topics/questions above:
- On nuclear host states: Kütt, M., & Mian, Z. (2022). Setting the deadline for
nuclear weapon removal from host states under the Treaty on the Prohibition
of Nuclear Weapons. Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 5(1), 148-
161. https://doi.org/10.1080/25751654.2022.2046405
- On street gang violence: Klein, M. W. (2011). Who can you believe?
Complexities of international street gang research. International Criminal
Justice Review, 21(3), 197–207.
- On regional organizations and their members: Coe, B., & Nash, K. (2020).
Peace process protagonism: the role of regional organisations in Africa in
conflict management. Global Change, Peace & Security, 32(2), 157-177.
The literature review starts by simply collecting sources, reading them and
trying to absorb as much information as possible about the topic and the research
question. Through this process, you may find that your research question needs
revising or in some cases, complete rewriting. Once you feel you have a good handle
on the most important sources on your research question, you must write the review
in a way that brings the sources together in a way that not only provides background
information on the subject, but also justifies the research question, why it is important,
and what we can learn from investigating the question further. For instance, maybe it
makes the most sense to arrange the research you’ve looked at in chronological order,
beginning with the early research and culminating in the most recent research on a
topic. Or, maybe your research contains a number of interrelated themes, in which
case, it may be ideal to introduce previous research as it is categorized based on its
theme. Finally, it’s possible that the literature review may be best organized by
considering previous theories that have existed in relation to your research question.
In this case, introducing the existing theories in order would be most helpful to your
reader and to your understanding of the research context. In general, it’s important to
consider the best way to showcase, summarize and synthesize previous research so
it is clear to the readers and other scholars interested in the topic.
Step Four: Hypothesis Development
Given the research question and your exploration of previous research that has
been organized in the literature review, it is now time to consider the theories and
hypothesis that you will be using. Usually, the theory helps build your hypotheses for
the study. Recall, a theory is a statement that explains how the world works based on
experience as an observation.
A scientific theory consists of a set of assumptions, hypotheses, and
independent (explanatory) and dependent (outcome) variables. First, assumptions are
statements that are taken for granted. These statements are necessary for the
researchers to proceed with their research so they are not usually challenged,
although other research may use different assumptions. For example, many
international relations scholars assume that the world is anarchic, meaning that there
is no meaningful central authority at the global level. In other words, there is no world
government. Again, we typically do not challenge a set of assumptions in scientific
research, but they need to be clearly stated.
Political science research involves both generating and testing hypotheses.
Researchers may start with observing many cases that relate to a topic of inquiry.
There are several methods. First, through inductive reasoning, scientists look at
specific situations and attempt to form a hypothesis. For example, by looking
specifically at the gang problem in El Salvador, we might form a hypothesis about the
general phenomenon of gang violence. Second, political scientists may also rely on
deductive reasoning, which occurs when you start with a general theory and use a
specific case to test that theory. For example, we might be familiar with a general
theory that nuclear weapons produce a stability known as Mutually Assured
Destruction. In order to test that theory, we might use a specific case, such as the
placing of nuclear weapons in Belarus, to add knowledge to that theory.
Recall, a hypothesis is a specific and testable prediction of what you think will
happen; a hypothesis, or set of hypotheses, will describe, in very clear terms, what
you expect will happen given the circumstances. Within the hypothesis, variables will
be identified. Remember, a variable is a factor or object that can vary or change. Again,
as political scientists are concerned with cause-and-effect relationships, they will
divide the variables into two categories: independent variables (explanatory variables)
are the cause, and these variables are independent of other variables under
consideration in a study. Dependent variables (outcome variables) are the assumed
effect, their values will (presumably) depend on the changes in the independent
variables.
Step Five: Testing with Data
The testing of a theory and set of hypotheses will depend on the research
method you decide to employ. For our purposes, the basic research approaches of
interest will be the single case study methods and the comparative method. Each one
of these methods involves research questions, use of theories to inform our
understanding of the research problem, hypothesis testing and/or theory generation.
Step Six: Reporting of Findings
A critical feature of the scientific method is to report your research findings.
Granted, not all research will result in publication, though publication is often the goal
of research that hopes to extend the political science field. Sometimes research, if not
published, is shared through research conferences, books, articles, or digital media.
Overall, the sharing of information helps lend others to further research into your topic
or helps spawn new and interesting directions of research. Interestingly, one can
compare a world where research is shared versus where it was not shared. During the
flu pandemic of 1918, many of the countries of the world did not have freedom of the
press, including the United States, which had implemented Sedition Acts in the midst
of World War I. Amid a hindered press and the lack of freedom of speech, many
doctors around the world were not able to communicate their ideas or treatment plans
for handling the flu pandemic at that time. Inundated with swarms of patients,
flummoxed by the nature of a flu that was killing young, healthy adults, but largely
sparing older individuals, doctors were trying all sorts of treatment methods, but were
unable to broadly share their results of what worked and didn’t work well for treatment.
Contrast this with the COVID-19 pandemic, many doctors were working on
treatment plans worldwide, and were able to share their ideas on how to best treat
COVID. Initially, there was a heavy reliance on ventilators. In time, some doctors found
that repositioning patients on their stomachs may be one way to avoid a ventilator and
bide time for the patient to recover without having to resort to a ventilator right away.
All told, the sharing of results is critical to learning about a research area or question.
If scientists, as well as political scientists, are unable to share what they’ve learned, it
can stall the advancement of knowledge altogether. Thus, this book, and others openly
published, is part of a broader effort to bring science to as many people as possible
without barriers.
The Comparative Method
In empirical research, there are four basic approaches: the experimental
method, the statistical method, case study methods, and the comparative method.
Each one of these methods involves research questions, use of theories to inform our
understanding of the research problem, hypothesis testing and/or hypothesis
generation. Each method is an attempt to understand the relationship between two or
more variables, whether that relation is correlational or causal. The study of
comparative politics can involve all four; however, the most common methods are case
studies and comparative methods. Therefore, we will focus on these two alone, and
the next chapter will go into more detail on the limitations and difficulties of each. What
is the Comparative Method? The comparative method is often considered one of the
oldest approaches in the study of politics. Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato,
the author of The Republic, Aristotle, the author of Politics, and Thucydides, the author
of the History of the Peloponnesian War wrote about politics in their times in a
comparative manner. Most scientific experiments or statistical analyses will have a
control or reference group. The reason is so that we can compare the results of our
current experiment and/or analysis to some baseline group. This is how knowledge
develops; by grafting new insights through comparison.
Likewise, comparison is more than just description. We are not only analyzing
the differences and/or similarities, we are conceptualizing. We cannot overstate the
importance of concepts in political science. A concept is defined as “an abstract or
generic idea generalized from particular instances” (Merriam-Webster). For political
scientists, concepts are “generally seen as nonmathematical and deal with substantive
issues” (Goertz, 2020). For example, if we want to compare democracies, we must
first define what exactly constitutes a democracy. This text will largely deal the
concepts of the state, democracy, and authoritarianism. Even in quantitative analyses,
concepts are always understood in verbal terms. Given that there are quite a few ways
to formulate quantitative measurements, conceptualization is key. Developing the right
scales, indicators, or reliability measures is predicated on having one’s concepts right.
A good example is the simple, yet complicated concept of democracy. Again, what
exactly constitutes a democracy? We are sure that it must include elections, but not
all elections are the same. An election in the U.S. is not the same as an election in
North Korea. Clearly, if we want to determine how democratic a country is, and develop
good indicators from which to measure, then concepts matter.
Comparative methods occupy an interesting space in methodology.
Comparative methods involve “the analysis of a small number of cases, entailing at
least two observations”. Yet it also involves “too few [cases] to permit the application
of conventional statistical analysis” (Collier, 1991, p. 106; Lijphart, 1971). This means
that the comparative method involves more than a case study, or single-N research
(discussed in detail below), but less than a statistical analysis, or large-N study. It is
for this reason that comparative politics is so closely intertwined with the comparative
method. As we tend to compare countries in comparative politics, the numbers end up
somewhere in between, anywhere from a few to sometimes over fifty. Cross-case
analysis through the comparison of key characteristics, are the preferred methods in
comparative politics scholarship. We will investigate this method in more detail in the
next chapter.
Case Study
Why would we want to use a case study? Case studies are one of the major
techniques used by comparativists to study phenomena. Cases provide for in-depth
traditional research. Many times there is a gap in knowledge, or a research question
that necessitates a certain level of detail. Naumes and Naumes (1999) write that case
studies involve storytelling, and that there is power in the story’s message. Clearly,
these are stories that are based in fact, rather than in fiction, but nevertheless, are
important as they describe situations, characters, and the mechanisms for why things
happen. For example, the exact cause of how the SARS-CoV-2 virus, more commonly
referred to as COVID-19, will involve telling that story.
A case is defined as a “spatially delimited phenomenon (a unit) observed at a
single point in time, or over some period of time” (Gerring, 2006). Others define a case
as “factual description of events that happened at some point in the past” (Naumes &
Naumes, 1999). Therefore, a case can be broadly defined. A case could be a person,
a family household, a group or community, or an institution, such as a hospital. The
key question in any research study is to clarify the cases that belong and the cases
that do not belong (Flick, 2018). If we are researching COVID-19, at what level should
we research? This is referred to as case selection, which we discuss in detail in
subsequent sections.
For many comparativists in political science, the unit (case) that is often
observed is a country, or a nation-state. A case study then is an intensive look into that
single case, often with the intent that this single case may help us better understand
a particular variable of interest. For example, we could research a country that
experienced lower levels of COVID-19 infections. This case study could consist of a
single observation within the country, with each observation having several
dimensions. For example, if we want to observe the country’s successful COVID-19
response, that observation could include the country’s level of health readiness, their
government’s response, and the buy-in from their citizens. Each of these could be
considered a dimension of the single observation - the successful response.
This description listed above is considered the traditional understanding of case
study research - the in-depth analysis of one case, in our example of that one country,
to find out how a particular phenomenon took place, a successful COVID-19 response.
Once we research and discover the internal processes that led to the successful
response, we naturally want to compare it to other countries (cases). When this
happens, shifting the analysis from just one country (case) to other countries (cases),
we refer to this as a comparative case study. A comparative case study is defined as
a study that is structured on the comparison of two or more cases. Again, for
comparative political scientists, we often compare countries and/or their actions.
