Empirical Political Analysis

A research methods textbook written specifically for students of politics, Empirical Political Analysis introduces a wide range of research techniques comprehensively and accessibly. With a balanced focus on quantitative and qualitative analysis, the book follows the research process from start to finish, offering a solid research foundation for both undergraduate and postgraduate students. This is an adaptation of the successful US textbook by C. R. Brians, Lars Willnat, J. B. Manheim and R. C. Rich. James Babb has made various sympathetic updates to the text, including examples from the UK, Europe and other countries. Two new chapters have been added to the book -- on discourse analysis and hermeneutics. Students of politics will find this is the only introductory methods textbook which covers their field comprehensively and in depth with a wealth of up-to-date examples and useful exercises.Empirical Political Analysis -- International Edition Section I.Theory and Research in Politics 1. The Research Process 2. The Theoretical and Conceptual Context of Political Research 3. Techniques of Systematic Bibliographic Search Section II. Research Design 4. Abstract to Concrete: Operationalization and Measurement 5. Working From a Plan: Considerations in Research Design 6. Experimental Research Design Section III. Quantitative Data 7. Who, What, Where, When: The Problem of Sampling 8. Survey Research 9. Scaling Techniques 10. Sources and Applications of Aggregate Data 11. Data Preparation and Data Processing Section IV. Quantitative Analysis 12. Content Analysis 13. Quantitative Comparative Research 14. Social Network Analysis: Finding Structure in a Complex World 15. Describing the Data: The Construction of Tables and Charts Section V. Statistical Techniques 16. Statistics I: Summarizing Distributions on One Variable 17. Statistics II: Examining Relationships between Two Variables 18. Statistics III: Examining Relationships among Several Variables Section VI. Qualitative Methods 19. Elite and Specialized Interviewing 20. Focus Group Methodologies 21. Direct Observation and Political Ethnography 22. Revealing Political Understanding: Discourse Analysis 23. Hermeneutics and Interpretation in Political Research Section VII. Reporting the Results 24. Writing (and Reading) the Research Report 25. Overview