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Dr Mathias Koenig-Archibugi and Prof Tomila Lankina CBG.10.13

This course is compulsory on the MPhil/PhD in International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option.

The main objective of this course is to familiarise students with the principal approaches to contemporary research in the main branches of International Relations and to help students identify the appropriate methods for their project. The course will encourage awareness of the relationship between theory and method in the conduct of research. It will highlight trade- offs when choosing specific methods and research designs. Our aim is to train well-rounded academic professionals, who are able to comprehend, critically interrogate, and engage with scholarship employing diverse methodological toolkits.

The course therefore aims to expose students to, and generate awareness of, a variety of research methods in the discipline irrespective of the particular approach employed in their doctoral work, and at the same time help them develop a detailed research plan for their own doctoral project The course will aim to promote an environment of mutual support and encouragement amongst first year research students, maximising the potential for cross fertilization between different projects. The course will develop students’ presentational skills in a group setting.

14 hours of seminars and 9 hours of seminars in the MT. 14 hours of seminars and 9 hours of seminars in the LT.

Students will be expected to draft and present sections of their research plan in the Michaelmas Term and to prepare and present a full research plan at the end of the Lent Term.

• Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier, Henry E. Brady & David Collier (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Political Methodology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
• Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (MIT Press, 2005);
• John Gerring, Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework, 2nd edition (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
• Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow, Interpretative Research Design: Concept and Processes (London: Routledge 2012);
• Patrick T. Jackson, The Conduct of Inquiry in International Relations (Routledge, 2010);
• Gary Goertz and James Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012).

This course is not assessed.