Course syllabus

IRP 705. Qualitative Skills in International Relations

Current as of April 1, 2008

Syllabus

Master Schedule of Sessions and Assignments

Course Approach

This is a workshop on qualitative skills for practitioners in the field of International Relations. These skills can be used for research, or to sharpen an ability to manage in an international context. All research methods and their derivative skills are quantitative, but those that use lower levels of measurement (nominal and ordinal scales) are customarily termed “qualitative”. Researchers in the social sciences, distinguish qualitative from quantitative methods. Like all real-world categorizations, this dichotomy glosses over many exceptions and fuzzy boundaries. Non-parametric statistical methods, for instance, describe and test relations between qualitative variables. Conversely, some methods usually considered qualitative, notably interviewing and content analysis, often find application in the data-making and coding steps of quantitative analyses. This term covers a set of skills and methods that, in the real world, are often the most useful. The course combines the techniques of cultural anthropology with those of sociology and political science to explore these critical skills.

Requirements

1. Class participation:

You are expected to participate in class discussions by drawing on assigned workshop materials, your own cultural or professional background, personal experiences and other sources of information with the class as relevant to the topic.

2. Term Project

The final project will be a term-length observation that will feed into the final simulation design. This will be done in groups.

3. Final paper

Your final paper will be a critique of a simulation on climate change that you and your colleagues designed in class. It should include the following elements: 1) your field notes; 2) description of the purpose of the simulation; 3) a critique of the process of constructing the simulation: what you learned about the technique and about yourself as a researcher (e.g., what went well, what would you do differently, kinds of problems this technique addresses, etc.); and 4) a reflexive discussion of how this activity has affected your view of your career interests.

Course Organization

The course will be based on a series of exercises and discussions. At each session, there will either be an exercise to develop qualitative skills or the presentation and analysis of a real-world situation that will be observed. The two sections will follow a common syllabus.

Readings

There is one required text for the course.

David Silverman, A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Qualitative Research, New York: Sage Publications, 2007

Additional readings will be made available in Blackboard and on the website, either through documents or through links. For Blackboard you should log in using your Syracuse identifier and password.

Projects

You will organize in groups to do the observations necessary to design a simulation of climate change negotiations.

Grading

In a graduate level course, the grade should be determined by whether the concepts and techniques being taught have been learned, found useful and used by the student. However, since the University requires grades, the course grade will be based on the following:

Final paper	33%
Participation in the class exercises	34%
Short projects (3)	33%

Office hours

Tuesdays 1-3:30; Wednesdays 12:30-3:30 or by appointment. Professor Mathiason's office is Maxwell 404b.

Academic Integrity

For individual assignments, I expect independent work and will penalize work that has been done on behalf of someone else.
In all papers and assignments for the course, it is important that proper conventions of scholarship be followed. If you use someone else's words, indicate this with quotation marks and a citation. If you paraphrase another person's work, a citation is necessary. If you draw substantially on the ideas of another person, credit this person. Plagiarism is a very serious matter and grounds for failing the class. If you have any doubt about the meaning of plagiarism please see me.
The Syracuse University Academic Integrity Policy holds students accountable for the integrity of the work they submit. Students should be familiar with the Policy and know that it is their responsibility to learn about instructor and general academic expectations with regard to proper citation of sources in written work. The policy also governs the integrity of work submitted in exams and assignments as well as the veracity of signatures on attendance sheets and other verifications of participation in class activities. Serious sanctions can result from academic dishonesty of any sort.
For more information and the complete policy, see http://academicintegrity.syr.edu

Disabilities

Students who may need academic accommodations due to a disability are encouraged to discuss their needs with the instructor at the beginning of the semester. In order to obtain authorized accommodations, students should be registered with the Office of Disability Services (ODS), 804 University Avenue, Room 309, 315-443-4498 and have an updated accommodation letter for the instructor. Accommodations and related support services such as exam administration are not provided retroactively and must be requested in advance."
For more information about services and policy, see Office of Disability Services, Syracuse University Office of Disability Services 804 University Avenue Room 309  Syracuse, New York 13244-2330

Master Schedule of Sessions and Assignments

Date	Session of course/Content of the session
January 16	1. Opening Session: What do I see and why do I see it? The opening session will include viewing an intergovernmental discussion and determining how to analyze what is seen. It will explore the relationship of individual observation with key concepts in the philosophy of science, the theory of numbers and differences between quantitative and qualitative methods. It will include an initial exporation of observation.
	Levels of observation. This section of the course will examine three levels of observation: individual looking in, individual looking out while participating and individual looking out as a passive observer.
January 23	2. Introspection. This session will involve an exercise in which each participant will make a short presentation that will be videoed and will make a self-critique of the presentation. Other participants will be able to comment. The purpose of the session is to show the limits of introspection as an analytic tool and how to recognize bias.
	Tools: This section of the course will examine the main tools that are available in qualitative research and in work in the international sector
January 30	3. Simulation Design I . This session will focus on the use of simulations as a tool to structure observation. Also see Professor Bonham's syllabus.
February 6	4. Simulation Design II. This session will continue the examination of simulations.
February 13	5. Content Analysis and Text Coding . This session will explore how to extract systematic information from text. It will include codebook construction and an exercise of analyzing texts used in intergovernmental (and foreign policy) decision-making.
February 20	6. Questionnaire Design. This session will explore the underlying principles of the interview by focusing on how to design a questionnaire.
February 27	7. Selecting and sampling populations. This session will look at how sampling is done in practice and apply this to a different tools.
March 5	8. Structured Interviewing and Elite Interviewing. This session will look at two different types of interviewing.
March 19	9. Case study design. This session will examine holistic approaches based on case or community studies.
March 26, April 2	10. Focus Groups. This session will examine how to do group interviews. See Professor Bonham's site.
April 9	11. Network analysis and What really happened? Presenting results. . This session will look at how networks can be analyzed and why this is a critical issue in international relations. It will also focus on how credible conclusions can be drawn and presented. It will look at the limits of causal inference as well as how to summarize findings so that they will be read.
	Presentations: This section will involve presentations of group projects.
April 16	12. Simulation Workshop I. Presentations begin. Presentations of group projects contributing to the simulation design.
April 23	13. Simulation Workshop II. Presentations conclude. Presentations of group projects to the simulation design.
May 2	Final papers due!