Surveying and Enhancing Existing Theory: Reviewing and Engaging the Literature

1. Surveying and Enhancing Existing Theory: Reviewing and Engaging the Literature PO 390W: Research Design for Political Science

2. An Amusing(?) True Story about the Need to Know Literature • Foster comes up with ridiculously great idea for a project • If liberal governments really are as weak on terror as conservatives say, shouldn’t terrorists generally target them more often? (timely, doable) • Fired up, Foster spends three weeks developing theory and hypotheses, finding data, and conducting tests which support the hypotheses • Foster goes to political science conference • Over several drinks with one of his closest polisici friends, Foster discovers that said friend has recently published an article with the exact same hypothesis and conclusions • Foster is extremely bummed

3. The Truth about Literature • The amount of published political science research is ABSOLUTELY STAGGERING • For example, there are 29 polisci journals included on JSTOR. Very conservatively assuming that (a) this represents about 1/5 of all “refereed” journals; (b) that each journal publishes four issues a year, and (c) that each issue contains seven articles, there are at least 4,060 original polisci articles published each year – and this doesn’t even count books • As such, analyzing the literature is an extremely daunting – though necessary – task

4. Why is Reviewing the Literature Important? • Gives beginners insights into what political science research looks like • Reveals what has already been done • Allows you to place your interests in a larger context • Allows you to identify gaps in the body of previous research • “Honing” your general interest • Shows you how to write your own literature review

5. What Political Science Research Looks Like • It does not always deal with issues that the general public finds compelling, and it is never dealt with in the way political “talking heads” approach the subject • “Who gets what, when, and how,” rather than “who hates whom” and “who’s wrong” • Instead, it is the simple reporting of the process of: • The identification of a research question and its placement in the existing literature • The development of theory or theoretical refinements based on that question • Empirical testing of derivative hypotheses

6. What Has Already Been Done • If you assume that no scientific research has been done that relates to your interest, you’re almost surely wrong! • Existing literature is very useful because it’s obligated to provide a general “road map” of the work which it draws upon and extends • The next step in the process is to delve quite deeply into this “road map.” • Gives you a comprehensive sense of (a) what individual contributors are saying and (b) the general course of theoretical and empirical development. • Often arduous, but absolutely necessary

7. Conducting Literature Searches: The Basics • Give a statement describing your research interest. • What’s been done on this question? Internet search engines provide a good starting point: • JSTOR • Google Scholar • Other scholarly sources

8. How are these Search Tools Best Used? • JSTOR • Advanced searches: set parameters to meet your needs • Abstract search; temporal restrictions; searching for books through published reviews • Solid database, but not all journals included and “moving wall” • Google Scholar • Broad population of writing pertaining to many topics • Main benefit: Access to unpublished papers • Main drawbacks: Full-article access often limited; less specific than JSTOR • Topic-specific sources • Uh…the library! (W&L’s Annie database) • Google searches of journals not included in JSTOR (accessing can be problematic, but can use ILL)

9. Pluggin’ Holes • Though existing research has addressed questions systematically, it is also characterized by gaps that need to be addressed • These gaps form the basis for the importance of your research question and endeavor

10. Example: Congress, the President, and the Use of Force • My original research question – “what is the relationship between Congress and the President concerning the use of armed force, and how do other states view this relationship?” – was quite interesting, but way too broad • I “whittled” down this research question by consulting the existing literature, and finding specific questions that had yet to be addressed

11. The Broad View • My initial readings of several dozen pieces yielded the following general classifications of existing work: • The president dominates on issues of foreign policy (e.g., Wildavsky, 1969) • Congress exercises direct control over specific foreign policy issues (Henehan, 2000) • Congress has significant indirect influence on most foreign policy issues, but is largely of secondary importance to the president (Rourke, 1973) • I was thus able, at the outset, to (a) determine that consensus has not been reached about the general topic, and (b) to provide a starting point for better specifying my own question (adding indirect component)

12. Narrowing the View • How does Congress indirectly influence FP? Again, there are different categories of literature on this question: • Divided government decreases the ability of the president to act unilaterally (Howell and Pevehouse, 2005) • The entire Congress seeks to constrain presidential decision-making by generally approving or disapproving of his actions through roll-call votes (Meernik, 2000) • Individual members of Congress try to rally public support against presidential foreign policy by taking public stances in opposition to the president (Mayhew 2000) • Thus, indirect influence through foreign policy opposition can constrain the president; further narrowing of research question

13. Fleshing out the Details of the Relationship • OK – so maybe congressional foreign policy opposition influences the president – but how does that effect conflict activity? Look at the conflict literature: • Maybe congressional opposition constrains the president from using force against others, the same way other domestic factors increase the president’s desire to use force (diversionary lit) • Maybe other states see this, and avoid the president when the economy is doing poorly (Smith, 1996; Fordham 2005) • But how do other states view congressional opposition? Schultz (1998) say parliamentary criticism can embolden adversaries in crises by diminishing unity – shouldn’t congressional opposition do the same in a general sense? • In essence, my new research question is: “How does congressional foreign policy opposition, by diminishing the ability of the president to put forth unified foreign policy, effect the decisions of other states to militarily target the US?”

14. So… What I’ve Done is: • Begun with a broad research topic • Conducted an extensive review of the lit to (a) find out what has been done; (b) find out what needs to be done; (c) find out what I can use to contextualize my argument • Develop a theoretical approach that builds upon previous work • Use that theoretical approach to reformulate my research question to in a way that address a specific gap in the literature

15. Writing Your Own Review • Finally, looking at other literature reviews lets you put together a synopsis of the lit, and gives you practical pointers • Laying out the “road map” of the theory informing your work • Pithy descriptions of relevant work; only “linger” on works if you are directly critiquing or building upon them • Identification of gap • Why should we care? • Plan to address gap • Your approach, complete with concise but obvious linkages to other relvant work.

16. THE “INVERTED PYRAMID”Your Lit Review: From Generality to Specificity Broad Research Interest General Topic Overview – How it’s Been Broadly Conceptualized Identifying Important Subtopics Within Literature Identifying Gaps in Subtopics, and the Importance of those Gaps Developing Plan to Address Gaps Specific, Manageable Research Question