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• Cover
• Half-title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Lists of Figures, Tables and Boxes
• Preface to the Fourth Edition
• Notes on Contributors
• 1 Introduction
• What is politics? What is it that political scientists study?
• What is a scientific approach to politics?
• The discipline of political science: a celebration of diversity?
• PART 1 Theory and Approaches
• Introduction to Part 1
• 2 Behavioural Analysis
• The rise of the behavioural movement and its core characteristics
• Criticisms of the behavioural approach
• Objections to the positivist claim that statements which are neither definitions (useful tautologies) nor empirical are meaningless
• The tendency towards mindless empiricism
• The assumed independence of theory and observation
• The strengths of the behavioural approach: an example
• Conclusion: the behavioural legacy in the twenty- first century
• Further reading
• 3 Rational Choice
• Introduction
• The methods of economics (and rational choice)
• The logic of collective action
• Collective action and the environment
• What’s wrong with rational choice theory?
• From imperialism to peaceful co-existence
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 4 Institutionalism
• The ‘traditional’ institutional approach
• The emergence of the ‘new institutionalism’
• The ‘three new institutionalisms’
• Core features of new institutionalism
• Institutions as rules not organisations
• Institutions as informal as well as formal
• Institutions as dynamic as well as stabilising
• Institutions as embodying values and power
• Institutions as contextually embedded
• New institutionalist dilemmas
• What is an institution anyway?
• Where do institutions come from, and how do they change?
• Are the normative and rational choice approaches compatible?
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 5 Constructivism and Interpretive Theory
• Origins of constructivism
• What is and isn’t distinctive about constructivism?
• Variations within constructivism
• Epistemological variations
• Different mechanisms and different social constructs
• Different methods
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 6 Feminist and Gendered Approaches
• What is feminism?
• Political science: gendered foundations
• Women in political science
• Gender and political science
• Political representation
• Feminising political parties
• Gendering the state and state feminism
• Dilemmas and challenges
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 7 Marxism: A Global Perspective
• Marxism and capitalism: structuralist economism or agency-led contingency?
• Marxist economism and base and superstructure
• Marx and capitalism
• Marxism, capitalism and nationalism
• Marxism and globalisation: economistic unilinearity or contingent uneven development?
• Marxist economism and capitalist diffusion
• Marx and the unequal international order
• Marxism, imperialism and uneven development as dependency
• Marxism and hegemony: the significance of Gramsci
• Debating globalisation in the twenty-first century
• Contemporary globalisation defined
• The continued relevance of Marxist ideas I: globalisation as uneven and combined development
• The continued relevance of Marxist ideas II: hegemony and the international order
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 8 Poststructuralism
• French structuralism
• From structuralism to poststructuralism
• Poststructuralism in politics and international relations
• The ontological and epistemological assumptions of poststructuralism
• Criticism and evaluation
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 9 Political Psychology
• An interdisciplinary enterprise
• Political conflict and contention
• Political leadership and followership
• Who leads matters
• How groups create leaders, and leaders gain followers
• Political beliefs and voter attitudes
• Perceiving the political world
• Causes and consequences of political attitudes
• Radicalisation and extremism: pathology or politics?
• Understanding political decision-making
• From homo economicus to homo psychologicus
• Groups as asset or problem in policy decision-making?
• Methods and prospects of the field
• Further reading
• 10 Normative Political Theory
• Introduction
• Methods in normative political theory
• Rawls on reflective equilibrium
• Cohen on facts and values
• Normative theory and global justice
• Political ideals and feasibility
• Further reading
• PART 2 METHODS AND RESEARCH DESIGN
• Introduction to Part 2
• 11 A Skin Not a Sweater : Ontology and Epistemology in Political Science
• Ontology and epistemology introduced
• The meaning of ontology and epistemology (and methodology)
• The relationship between ontology and epistemology
• Distinguishing ontological and epistemological positions
• Distinguishing broad ontological positions
• Distinguishing broad epistemological positions
• Interrogating different approaches to ontology and epistemology
• Positivism
• Interpretivism
• Critical realism
• Ontology and epistemology in empirical research
• Empirical research on deliberative democracy – positivism versus interpretivism
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 12 Meta-Theoretical Issues
• Conceptualising structure, agency and the ideational realm
• Structure
• Agency
• The ideational realm
• Dialectical approaches to the relationships between structure and agency and the material and the ideational
• Structure and agency: the dialectical approaches
• Structuration theory
• The Morphogenetic approach
• The strategic-relational approach
• Bourdieu and habitus
• The material and the ideational: thin and thick constructivism
• Stability and change
• Hay: a linear conception of time
• Tonkiss: a non-linear conception of time
• A flexi-time model: a circadian conception of time
• More on punctuated evolution
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 13 Research Design
• What is research design?
• The research process
• The elements of research design
• Research questions and research goals
• Theory and empirical research
• Conceptualisation and operationalisation
• Types of research methodologies
• Case and variable selection for different types of research
• Experimental research
• Large-N observational research
• Comparative research
• Single-case studies and within-case analysis
• Conclusion: the power and promise of research design
• Further reading
• 14 Qualitative Methods
• Debates on qualitative methods: the rediscovery of qualitative analysis
• What is distinctive about qualitative methods and analysis?
• Qualitative research techniques
• Primary research: interviews, group discussion and ethnography
• Secondary research: using text/document-based techniques
• Conclusion: the use and future use of qualitative methods in political science
• Further reading
• 15 Quantitative Methods
• The collection and management of data
• The power of description
• Tables and inferential statistics
• Multivariate analysis
• Testing and reporting models
• Recent developments
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• 16 The Comparative Method
• Introduction
• Comparative politics and comparative method – politics beyond the armchair?
• Comparative method and the scientific method – why small-N research strategies?
• Mill’s methods of experimental inquiry and their influence on comparative political science
• Method of agreement
• Method of difference
• Joint method
• Most different and most similar strategies
• The changing nature of comparative research strategies – qualitative comparative analysis
• Case studies, within-case comparison and process-tracing
• Case selection
• Within-case analysis
• Conclusion: evolving comparison in response to challenges
• Further reading
• 17 The Experimental Method
• What is the experimental method?
• The rise of experimentation
• Learning from laboratory experiments
• Learning from field experiments
• Learning from internet-based experiments
• Learning from natural experiments
• Pitfalls in the experimental method
• Ethical challenges
• Practical problems
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• Acknowledgements
• 18 Big Data: Methods for Collection and Analysis
• Introduction
• Defining big data
• Big data and data collection
• Data formats
• Extensible markup language (XML)
• Application programming interfaces (APIs)
• Web crawling
• Web scraping
• Big data and data analysis
• Combining heterogeneous kinds of data
• Limitations to big data
• Conclusion: big data and the future of social science
• Further reading
• 19 The Relevance of Political Science
• Position 1: political science should do good science and if the science is good it will be relevant
• Position 2: political science should be better at communicating its results; if it were it would be more relevant
• Position 3: political science should be prepared to have its agenda set by problem-solving or puzzle-solving concerns that matter to policymakers and citizens; if it did it would be more relevant
• Position 4: political science should be prepared to develop a capacity not just for analysing problems but also for developing solutions; that move would enhance its capacity for relevance
• Position 5: political science needs to develop a more engaged co-production approach to research, working alongside actors outside academia to address their concerns and so advance the relevance of research
• Position 6: political science needs to embrace a wider role in creating a civic culture essential to democracy; if it does that it will be relevant
• Where next for relevance?
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright