Cases, Numbers, Models: International Relations Research Methods edited by Detlef F. Sprinz and Yael Wolinsky REVISED, November 2002 Tai Lieu Chat Luong 2 Contents List of Tables 4 List of Graphs 5 1 Introduction: Methodology in International Relations Research, Detlef F. Sprinz and Yael Wolinsky 6 I CASE STUDY METHODS 2 Case Study Methods: Design, Use, and Comparative Advantages, Andrew Bennett 27 3 Case Study Methods in International Political Economy, John S. Odell 65 4 Oualitative Research Design in International Environmental Policy, Ronald Mitchell and Thomas Bernauer 91 5 Case Study Methods in International Security Studies, Arie M.
Kacowicz 119 II QUANTITATIVE METHODS 6 Empirical-Quantitative Approaches to the Study of International Relations, Bear F. Braumoeller and Anne E. Sartori 139 7 Quantitative Approaches to the International Political Economy, Edward D. Mansfield 164 8 Quantitative Analysis of International Environmental Policy, Detlef F.
Sprinz 190 3 9 Testing Theories of International Conflict: Questions of Research Design for Statistical Analysis, Paul Huth and Todd Allee 207 III FORMAL METHODS 10 Formal Models of International Politics, Duncan Snidal 242 11 International Political Economy and Formal Models of Political Economy, Helen Milner 284 12 Consumption, Production and Markets: Applications of Microeconomics to International Politics, John A. Conybeare 311 13 Game Theory and International Environmental Policy, D. Marc Kilgour and Yael Wolinsky 339 14 Formal Analysis and Security Studies: The Art of Shaker Modeling, Andrew Kydd 370 15 Conclusion, Detlef F. Sprinz and Yael Wolinsky 396 4 List of Tables Chapter 1: Introduction Table 1: Organization of the Book and Chapter Authors Chapter 2: Bennett Table 1: Equivalent Terms for Types of Case Studies Chapter 4: Bernauer and Mitchell Table 1: Criteria for High Quality QER Research Chapter 6: Braumoeller and Sartori Table 1.
Relationship between Y and X from Anscombe (1973) Table 2: A significant regression coefficient with 50,000 observations 5 List of Figures Chapter 1. Introduction Figure 1: Trends in Methodology of International Relations Research Chapter 6: Braumoeller and Sartori Figure 1. Four datasets consistent with results in Table 1. Figure 2: Data summarized in Table 2.
Chapter 8: Sprinz Figure 1: Measuring Regime Effectiveness Chapter 9: Huth and Allee Figure 1. The Evolution of International Disputes Figure 2: The Dispute Initiation Stage Figure 3: The Challenge the Status Quo Stage Figure 4: The Negotiations Stage Figure 5: The military Escalation Stage Chapter 10: Snidal Figure 1a. Stable Richardson Arms Race Figure 1b. Unstable Richardson Arms Race Figure 2: Arms Race as a Prisoners’ Dilemma Figure 3: Multiple Cooperative Equilibria Figure 4: Extensive Form of Trust Game Figure 5: Normal Form of Trust Game Figure 6: Normal Form Threat Game Figure 7: Extensive Form Threat Game Chapter 12: Conybeare.
Figure 1: War and Expected Utility Chapter 13: Kilgour and Wolinsky Figure 1: Asymmetric Deterrence Game (adapted from Zagare and Kilgour 2000) Figure 2: Perfect Bayesian Equilibria of Asymmetric Deterrence Game (adapted from Zagare and Kilgour 2000) Chapter 14: Kydd Figure 1: The Bargaining Range Figure 2: The Game Tree (Complete Information) Figure 3: The New Bargaining Range Figure 4: The Game Tree (Incomplete Information) Figure 5: War in the Incomplete Information Bargaining Game 6 1 Introduction: Methodology in International Relations Research1 Detlef F. Sprinz and Yael Wolinsky Studies of International Relations try to explain a broad range of political interactions among countries, societies, and organizations. From the study of war and peace, to exploring economic cooperation and environmental conflict, furthering a methodologically-guided understanding of international politics requires a systematic approach to identifying fundamental processes and forces of change. With the growing importance of economic interdependence and the profound changes in the international system during the last few decades, the analysis of International Relations has expanded in three main directions.
First, scholars have ventured into new issue areas of International Relations including international environmental politics, international ethics, and globalization. Second, new methods have emerged within the study of International Relations (e., two-level game analysis and spatial analysis), and the scope of methodologies has substantially broadened over the past decades to include greater use of rational choice analysis and statistical methods. Finally, aiming at a more precise understanding of complex interactions among players at the international level, students of the field have developed greater specialization within both substantive sub-fields and methodological approaches. These developments have undoubtedly enriched International Relations research and have drawn more attention to additional areas of study such as compliance with international treaties and the explanation of civil wars.
At the same time the combination of new themes of research, broadening scope of methodologies, and greater specialization within sub-fields has overshadowed common methodological concerns of students of the field. While general courses on research methodologies have become part of the standard curriculum in Political Science at both the advanced undergraduate level and the graduate level, serious discussions of methodological problems common to the analysis of International Relations are still 7 comparatively rare. This volume aims to fill this gap by presenting theoretical and empirical studies that deal with central methodological issues in the study of International Relations while also examining recent debates in the field. The authors explain the application of three different methods of research to the study of International Relations: case studies, quantitative analyses, and formal methods2.
The use of these methods is evaluated in the context of different substantive sub-fields of International Relations (e. international security, international political economy). The authors also engage in a discussion of how the different methods have influenced central debates in International Relations such as whether and why democratic countries are unlikely to fight each other, and what determines the effectiveness of international regimes. Following many years of debate on which method has the leading edge in studying International Relations, this book is written in a very different spirit.
It argues that enough knowledge has now been accumulated to foster a serious dialogue across different methodological approaches and sub-fields. Such a dialogue will generate a better understanding of the advantages and limits of different methods and thus could lead to more fruitful research on International Relations. Recently, leading scholars of the field have elaborated upon the need for a more robust discourse on methodology in International Relations. In particular, two former presidents of the International Studies Association, Michael Brecher and Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, have attempted to motivate such a dialogue.
In his 1999 Presidential Address to the International Studies Association, Brecher states that the field must move away from intolerance of competing paradigms, models, methods and findings. He emphasizes the importance of both cumulation of knowledge and research that bridges across methods (Brecher 1999). Bueno de Mesquita outlines the comparative advantages of the three major methods used in international relations (case study, quantitative, and formal methods) and suggests that “[s]cientific progress is bolstered by and may in fact require the application of all three methods” (Bueno de Mesquita 2002). For decades International Relations scholars have debated methodological issues such as the level of analysis dilemma: Should policy and politics be explained by focusing on decision makers as individuals, the state organizations involved, or factors at the international system level? And while such issues are still important, the 8 accumulation of methodologically oriented research now allows for a more integrative approach to the study of International Relations.
Indeed, the growing interest in diverse aspects of international politics in both academia and public policy may be enhanced by greater discourse among scholars in the field. This book offers a unique combination of an introduction to the major strands of methodology and an examination of their application in dominant sub-fields of International Relations. Throughout the book the emphasis is on the merits of employing case study, quantitative analysis, and formal methods in International Relations research and the trade-offs involved in using each method. Subsequent to the introduction to each method, separate chapters illustrate the application of the particular method in three sub- fields of International Relations: international political economy, international environmental politics, and international security.
These sub-fields were chosen for several reasons. International security has been at the heart of the traditional study of International Relations and still is a core sub-field. Many of the main intellectual challenges of scholars in the field center on international security, beginning with the study of war and its causes at the individual (leader), state, and international system levels. Over the past half century, scholars have broadened the range of questions to include the implications of nuclear deterrence for the stability of the international system, causes of civil wars, how and why international alliances form, and whether and why democratic countries are less likely to go to war against each other (the democratic peace thesis).
International political economy (IPE) is another central sub-field of International Relations. Much current scholarship on international politics deals with questions of international political economy, specifically the politics of international trade and monetary relations. Many studies in this field focus on foreign economic policy-making, but broader definitions of the field also include the study of international institutions and cooperation3. International political economy has been at the center of the modern study of International Relations largely due to the growing importance of economic interactions among countries, but even more so as a result of the flourishing global economy since the end of World War II and the contemporary wave towards globalization.
9 International environmental politics is a relatively new sub-field that has emerged with the growing importance of global and transboundary environmental issues including climate change, transboundary air pollution, and threats to the world’s biodiversity. Its significance derives from the possibility that perfectly “normal” human activities now have the potential to destroy the basis of life on a truly global scale. Students of the field study motivations and policies of both traditional players such as governments and international organizations and non-traditional players, primarily the rapidly growing number of international non-governmental organizations, who have come to play a prominent role in international environmental politics. Given the emerging nature of this field, a candid discussion of methodological problems and a comparison across methods and fields can help facilitate the advancement of a diverse research agenda.
The idea of this book was born following a discourse among some of the authors in the 1997 annual meeting of the International Studies Association (ISA) in Toronto, Canada. Following that conference, the editors invited the authors to write a paper on their methodological area of expertise. In addition to presenting these papers and discussing issues on ISA panels, the authors also met in March 1999 for a workshop that focused on the role and limitations of the different methodologies in advancing International Relations research. Although the group was not able to agree on every issue, we benefited from these serious and thoughtful conversations.
The interaction among authors continued during the drafting, review, and revision of the chapters, as we read each other’s chapters. Accordingly, these chapters (perhaps with one exception) represent original work written specifically for this volume. Theory and Methodology There are three main elements that portray the state of the art and the intellectual progress of an academic field. The first element is the set of empirical phenomena and questions being studied; the second criterion is the development of theory, and the third is the ways in which methodology is used to evaluate theoretical claims and their empirical implications.
This book focuses on methodology but the authors also discuss the first two 10 elements and how methodology affects both empirical debates and theoretical issues. The links between theory and methodology are complex and deserve some deliberation4. Theory is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as [s]ystematically organized knowledge applicable in a relatively wide variety of circumstances, esp. a system of assumptions, accepted principles, and rules of procedure devised to analyze, predict, or otherwise explain the nature or behavior of a specified set of phenomena (The American Heritage Dictionary 1985, 1260).
Theory provides clear and precise explanations of important phenomena. It focuses scholarly attention on important puzzles that set the research agenda for students of the field.
