GV249 Seminar AT2: Theory
Lennard Metson
2024-10-15
🧑🏫 Any questions from the lecture?
🏗️ Theory building
Key reading
Geddes (2003). Paradigms and sand castles: Theory building and research design in comparative politics. Chapter 2.
- Finding a research question
- Theory building
🧱 Elements of theory
Variables
- Independent
- Dependent
Hypothesis
- Hypothesis
- Null hypotheses
🧱 Elements of theory
Mechanism
- Specification of the relationship between the IV and DV
- Other variables in the relationship
- Mediators
- Moderators
Scope conditions
🧱 Elements of theory
Conceptualisation
Key reading
Sartori (1970). Concept Mis-formation in Comparative Politics. American Political Science Review
Why is conceptualisation important?
- Smaller world; bigger data
What is the ladder of abstraction?
- How do we move up and down the ladder? (☝️ hint p. 1041)
Conceptualisation
Let’s come up with some examples!
Nuance
Key reading
Healy (2017). Fuck Nuance. Sociological Theory
What is nuance?
- Fine-grain
- Conceptual Framework
- Connoisseur
Nuance
Key reading
Healy (2017). Fuck Nuance. Sociological Theory
Is nuance bad?
- Abstraction
- Usefulness
🤔 What makes good theory?
Parsimony (simple summary that helps us navigate) vs accuracy (detailed description of reality)
Ultimately, theory should be useful
Useful theory
Useful theory
Useful theory
Useful theory
💻 R & RStudio
💻 R Vs RStudio
R is a programming language.
RStudio Desktop is a programme which we use to write and run R scripts.
- People use other programmes to write and run R scripts (e.g. VSCode; Jupyter Notebook; Emacs; etc)
💻 R & RStudio
GV249 AT2 | 📨 email l.m.metson@lse.ac.uk 🤔 Question? 🙋 raise your hand or 🖥️ use the Moodle Forum.