Political Science Homework

The research assignment amounts to a 11-14 page paper: 1. Identifying a research question; 2. Developing a plausible theory to answer that question, including the identification of testible implications (hypotheses); 3. Elaborating a strategy for measuring the concepts empirically and quantitatively; and 4. Testing the hypotheses using quantitative analysis. The paper will be due in phases and total 11-14 pages.1 Section 1 (4-5 pp.) will identify a (political science) research question, elaborate a theory, and identify the testable hypotheses. Section 2 (3-4 pp.) will explain how you will measure the concepts involved empirically and identify existing data, including sources, summary statistics and graphs as appropriate. Section 3 (4-5 pp.) will present statistical tests for the hypotheses and analyze the results. Page limits do not include graphs and tables I will discuss the papers in more detail in class. Additionally, I highly recommend the following memoranda on writing political science research papers, with due credit to their authors: (1) http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/political-science/; and (2) http://people.duke.edu/∼ buthe/downloads/teaching/Buthe Paperwriting Mimeo.pdf.