Research Methods in Politics and International Relations

Christopher Lamont is Dean of E-Track’s International Relations program and Vice Dean of the Graduate School of International Relations at Tokyo International University in Japan. He holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Glasgow. He was also a Fulbright fellow at the University of Zagreb and an RCUK postdoctoral fellow at the University of Ulster. His research interests are at the intersection of global governance, technology, and international justice. He is the author of Research Methods in International Relations, now in its second edition, published by Sage. He is also co-editor (with Arnaud Kurze) of New Critical Spaces in Transitional Justice: Gender, Art, and Memory published by Indiana University Press in 2019, and Non-Western Visions of Democratization: Imagining Democracy after the Arab Spring (with Jan van der Harst and Frank Gaennsmantel), which was published by Routledge/Ashgate in 2015. His monograph, International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance (Routledge/Ashgate 2010) explored the international and domestic politics of international criminal justice processes in the former Yugoslavia. In addition to his scholarly contributions, his writings have also featured in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The Diplomat, among others. Mieczyslaw P. Boduszynski is Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Pomona College in Claremont, California, USA. He has been a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Zagreb and taught courses at universities in Japan, Egypt, Albania, and France. His research interests include democracy and human rights promotion; U.S. foreign policy; democratic transitions and authoritarian backsliding; and the politics of transitional justice. He is the author of two books: Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States (Johns Hopkins 2010) and U.S. Democracy Promotion in the Arab World (Lynne Rienner 2019). In addition to his scholarly contributions, his writings have also been featured in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, among other outlets. Boduszynski also has substantial experience as a practitioner, having spent a decade as a U.S. diplomat and has worked a year each in the U.S. Congress and Department of Defense as a policy advisor. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. 

Chapter 1Getting Started
Chapter 2Methodology and Methods in Politics and International Relations
Chapter 3The Purpose of Theory
Chapter 4Research Ethics
Chapter 5Formulating a Research Question
Chapter 6Compiling and Writing a Literature Review
Chapter 7Research Design
Chapter 8Single Case Study Design
Chapter 9Comparative Case Study Design
Chapter 10Interview Research
Chapter 11Surveys and Questionnaires
Chapter 12Documents, Texts, and Archival Research
Chapter 13Discourse, Thematic, and Content Analysis
Chapter 14Descriptive Statistics
Chapter 15Inferential Statistical Analysis
Chapter 16Correlation Tests and Regression Analysis
Chapter 17Writing Up Your Paper
Chapter 18Final Hurdles and Looking Forward