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Dr Milli Lake CBG.8.03 and Prof Benjamin Dodge CBG.9.02

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 offer students an introduction to and route map through the principal approaches to contemporary research in the main branches of International Relations and to help students identify the appropriate methods for their own thesis. The course will investigate the relationship between theory and method in the conduct of research. It will encourage students to think about the trade- offs and tensions involved in choosing specific methods and research designs. Our aim is to facilitate student learning so that each research student can comprehend, critically interrogate and engage with scholarship employing diverse methodological toolkits.  The end result aimed for is well-rounded and professional academics that are familiar and hence intellectually at ease with the plurality of methodological and theoretical approaches available to those conducting cutting edge research in International Relations.

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 students employ in their doctoral work, and at the same time help them develop a detailed research plan for their own research. 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 also develop students’ presentational skills in a group setting.

14 hours of seminars and 9 hours of workshops in the MT. 14 hours of seminars and 9 hours of workshops 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);
• Diana Kapiscewski, Lauren MacLean, and Benjamin Read, Field Research in Political Science: Practices and Principle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2015).
• 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.