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Introduction to the 4 th Biennial LSE Ph.D Symposium

Introduction to the 4 th Biennial LSE Ph.D Symposium. Kevin Featherstone Director, Hellenic Observatory LSE. What’s going to happen…. Plenary lectures: reviewing key subject areas, stimulating debate. Q&A. Panel Meetings: your presentations & feedback in specialist groups.

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Introduction to the 4 th Biennial LSE Ph.D Symposium

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  1. Introduction to the 4th Biennial LSE Ph.D Symposium Kevin Featherstone Director, Hellenic Observatory LSE

  2. What’s going to happen… • Plenary lectures: reviewing key subject areas, stimulating debate. Q&A. • Panel Meetings: your presentations & feedback in specialist groups. • Lunch: you’re free to choose where… • Tonight: reception & book launch, 7.15pm in SDR: 5th Floor, Old Building. • Check with information desk volunteers…

  3. Organisation: • Special thanks to: Ms. Eleni Xiarchogiannopoulou, Symposium Convenor, HO. Dr. Spyros Economides, Deputy Director, HO. And colleagues, volunteers.

  4. What you can expect: • Interesting lectures, opportunity to meet fellow PhD students in your area, staff. • Afterwards: go to Hellenic Observatory webpage for more information, mailings. • Panels: presentation of (part of) your research & challenging questions from group. PLEASE: keep to time with your presentations! Ask questions of each other…help each other.

  5. Writing a PhD…. • Long, lonely process…leading to a limited income. • Purpose of Symposium: to help you connect; in presenting, you need to streamline your argument; offer you some constructive feedback on your research design; maintain contacts. • But be realistic…there are limits.

  6. What is your research question? • [Why…? How…?] Say it in ONE sentence. Make it clear. What are you trying to explain? Your PhD question cannot be about the future, but the past. • Why is it relevant? Part of a broader question in my academic field – answer to: So what? Contribution? • How are you explaining it? Connect question to an hypothesis to give a clear causal answer and to facilitate generalisation. Place hypothesis in a conceptual frame, theory. Who are my academic opponents? • Can my hypothesis be proved wrong? Say what evidence would show it was wrong. If it can’t be shown to be wrong, its not much use.

  7. What is the ‘puzzle’ here? • e.g. explaining an unexpected event or outcome – something that contradicts our previous knowledge of the case. • Why shouldn’t we have expected this (historical path; comparative theory)? So, why did it happen (hypothesis & theory)? • What’s the surprise? What’s new?

  8. Selection of case studies: Greece and Another? ‘Puzzle’: • 2 most similar cases, but different outcomes. Why? • 2 different cases, but similar outcome. Why? • Comparison helps you to focus on the key conditions explaining the outcome, helps develop theory.

  9. Greece as a single case study • Comparison within Greece between sectors: choice of cases as above (most similar / dissimilar). • Single country study can support international comparison if study uses comparative concepts, theory. Refine theory from deviant cases: • Greece as a ‘least likely’ case: theory suggests outcome is least likely (puzzle = it has, so why?). • Greece as ‘most likely’ case: theory suggests outcome most likely (puzzle = it hasn’t,why not?) • For both: what theory revision is needed?

  10. Further reading… • P. Dunleavy, Authoring a PhD (Palgrave, 2003). • R. Hancke, Intelligent Research Design (2009). See his LSE homepage. • T. Landman, Issues and Methods in Comparative Politics (Routledge, 2003). • P. Burnham et al Research Methods in Politics (Palgrave, 2008).

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