4 thoughts to “Final Research Design Presentation”
Jack, I think you have a very interesting puzzle and you a good job getting across what is interesting about you puzzle (good elevator talk). I also like how you use the Weiss article throughout your entire presentation it seems that you have a good source there. I find your South Korea to be especially interesting, I think you could have developed a single case study from just that case. I would have liked to see a more explicit mention and explanation to your DV and IV’s, I know you mention them but I think it would have been helpful to see it on screen and perhaps talk about how many operationalize your variables. Overall this is a very fine and concise presentation of your research topic.
You’ve clearly put thought into the specific motivations that led you to conclude that your current research design is the best one for your puzzle. This is good, obviously. For the final narrative paper, you might consider explicitly grounding your choice of the South Korean case in the theoretical schools of thought you detailed in addition to its historical uniqueness.
While listening to your proposal, I also thought that it would be hard to operationalize the decision-making process of the Chinese government, which you mention at the end of this presentation. To answer your question, I don’t know that I would call that inherently harmful to your project — there is plenty of good research with challenging variables — but it is definitely an obstacle that will hold back the rest of the research until it is addressed.
Jack, I think this is overall a good presentation. You do a really good job justifying your methodological choices and your case selection. As you say, the opaqueness of the Chinese government will be a problem, but such is that case for all who study authoritarian regimes. One thing I would like to have seen more of in this presentation is a discussion of your variables and how you would operationalize them. It seems to me that this is especially important in light of China’s opaqueness and how that requires a degree of inference to determine the presence of your variables.
Jack – as your peers have noted, you have a very good presentation here. I appreciate the clarity with which you have traced out your methodological choices and connected your proposed research to the theoretical and methodological literature. Researching authoritarian regimes is indeed a tricky thing, but you will also have a fair amount of time to work on operationalization in 306. You might examine how other scholars have conducted such research (in any given authoritarian regime, not necessarily just China), and remember that you have Clement available to you as a reference as well. Going forward, I would suggest refining your hypotheses so that they are more clearly testable statements about the *variation* in different variables (singularly or in combinations / sequences); right now you have assertions rather than testable propositions about the relationships between your variables. I also think that you are really proposing what Gerring calls a “Type III” case study rather than time-series. These are not critical errors at this moment, but things to think about and work on refining as you continue your research. Overall, a good job — both in substance and in terms of presentation style and clarity!
Jack, I think you have a very interesting puzzle and you a good job getting across what is interesting about you puzzle (good elevator talk). I also like how you use the Weiss article throughout your entire presentation it seems that you have a good source there. I find your South Korea to be especially interesting, I think you could have developed a single case study from just that case. I would have liked to see a more explicit mention and explanation to your DV and IV’s, I know you mention them but I think it would have been helpful to see it on screen and perhaps talk about how many operationalize your variables. Overall this is a very fine and concise presentation of your research topic.
You’ve clearly put thought into the specific motivations that led you to conclude that your current research design is the best one for your puzzle. This is good, obviously. For the final narrative paper, you might consider explicitly grounding your choice of the South Korean case in the theoretical schools of thought you detailed in addition to its historical uniqueness.
While listening to your proposal, I also thought that it would be hard to operationalize the decision-making process of the Chinese government, which you mention at the end of this presentation. To answer your question, I don’t know that I would call that inherently harmful to your project — there is plenty of good research with challenging variables — but it is definitely an obstacle that will hold back the rest of the research until it is addressed.
Jack, I think this is overall a good presentation. You do a really good job justifying your methodological choices and your case selection. As you say, the opaqueness of the Chinese government will be a problem, but such is that case for all who study authoritarian regimes. One thing I would like to have seen more of in this presentation is a discussion of your variables and how you would operationalize them. It seems to me that this is especially important in light of China’s opaqueness and how that requires a degree of inference to determine the presence of your variables.
Jack – as your peers have noted, you have a very good presentation here. I appreciate the clarity with which you have traced out your methodological choices and connected your proposed research to the theoretical and methodological literature. Researching authoritarian regimes is indeed a tricky thing, but you will also have a fair amount of time to work on operationalization in 306. You might examine how other scholars have conducted such research (in any given authoritarian regime, not necessarily just China), and remember that you have Clement available to you as a reference as well. Going forward, I would suggest refining your hypotheses so that they are more clearly testable statements about the *variation* in different variables (singularly or in combinations / sequences); right now you have assertions rather than testable propositions about the relationships between your variables. I also think that you are really proposing what Gerring calls a “Type III” case study rather than time-series. These are not critical errors at this moment, but things to think about and work on refining as you continue your research. Overall, a good job — both in substance and in terms of presentation style and clarity!