Fall/Winter Timetable

POL2505H1S L0101

Qualitative Methods in Political Research

Themes

This course surveys qualitative methods used in political research. The course will be divided into three parts. The first part will explore the broad questions of research ethics, interpretive and positive approaches to the work of researching politics and critical issues in the philosophy of science. The second part will deal with specific issues in political research including research design, case selection, interviewing, ethnography, focus group discussions and archival research. The final segment of the course will cover the cross-cutting issues of lies and deception in the “field” and research in challenging terrains and during difficult times.
The course seeks to transform participants into more literate, capable and humble researchers. It will provide seminar participants with skills and competences that will allow them to better understand and critically engage work in Politics and other social sciences. These skills and competences should also enable them to undertake high quality social scientific research. An effort will be made throughout the course to alert participants to the strengths and promise as well as the weaknesses and limits of various methods and the trade-offs involved in the methodological choices scholars make in diverse contexts.

Format and Requirements

The course will adopt a hands-on approach to teaching and learning. We will use a series of role-plays in class and employ multiple practical exercises for teaching and evaluation purposes that center on students’ research projects. We should be receiving scholars who will share their experiences with us during classes throughout the semester. The students that will benefit the most from this course are those who have or can develop a reasonably good sense of the research question(s) they hope to explore in their graduate work. Having a concrete project that acts as a prism through which to contemplate course content will help students to better grasp issues dealt with in class. The centrality of proposal development in assessing students for this course will give students an opportunity to sharpen their dissertation projects through course sessions and exercises throughout the semester.

Preparation

It is recommended that students have done the core course in one of the subfields, and are aware of basic methodological approaches. The core course seminar in comparative politics, or in international relations would be most helpful.