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Courses on qualitative methods are underrepresented in top political science graduate programs when compared to courses on quantitative methods (Bennett, Barth, and Rutherford 2003). This underrepresentation has led some political scientists to call for more qualitative methods courses in their curricula. However, "qualitative" methodology is a diverse field with many currents, raising the challenging task of deciding what material and what courses should be offered as basic components of graduate training.

Mode of access: Internet. ; Reprint. Originally published: Calcutta : Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, India (series: Selections from the records of the Government of India, Foreign Department ; no. 359 and: Foreign Department serial ; no. 100)

"This book analyses the challenges of secrecy in security research, and develops a set of methods to navigate, encircle and work with secrecy. How can researchers navigate secrecy in their fieldwork, when they encounter confidential material, closed-off quarters or bureaucratic rebuffs? This is a particular challenge for researchers in the security field, which is by nature secretive and difficult to access. This book creatively assesses and analyses the ways in which secrecies operate in security research. The collection sets out new understandings of secrecy, and shows how secrecy itself can be made productive to research analysis. It offers students, PhD researchers and senior scholars a rich toolkit of methods and best-practice examples for ethically appropriate ways of navigating secrecy. It pays attention to the balance between confidentiality, and academic freedom and integrity. The chapters draw on the rich qualitative fieldwork experiences of the contributors, who did research at a diversity of sites, for example at a former atomic weapons research facility, inside deportation units, in conflict zones, in everyday security landscapes, in virtual spaces, and at borders, bureaucracies and banks. The book will be of interest to students of research methods, critical security studies and International Relations in general"--

The Blackwell Dictionary of Political Science is a clear and lively introduction to the terminology of political science for students and general readers. The book comprises rigorous definitions and explanations of key terms (eg marxism) presented in an engaging style, cross-referenced, and easily accessible to readers new to the subject. It includes short biographies of the most eminent writers in the discipline - both classical (eg Mill) and modern (eg Hayek). The book is unique in combining a single author's overview and minimal assumptions about the reader's prior knowledge of the discipline. Major entries include short bibliographies for those who wish to pursue topics further. This dictionary is invaluable as a reference tool as well as a book to be read in its own right

ABSTRACTAcademic writing is notoriously difficult to read. Can political science do better? To assess the state of prose in political science, we examined a recent issue of the American Political Science Review. We evaluated the articles according to the basic principles of style endorsed by writing experts. We find that the writing suffers most from heavy noun phrases in forms such as noun noun noun and adjective adjective noun noun. Further, we describe five contributors that swell noun phrases: piled modifiers, needless words, nebulous nouns, missing prepositions, and buried verbs. We document more than a thousand examples and demonstrate how to revise each one with principles of style. We also draw on research in cognitive science to explain why these constructions confuse, mislead, and distract readers.

'Keeping silent' can be a meaningful political event, a form of political activism that generates new political subjectivities and alters existing realities by reconfiguring power relations. To flesh out this argument, this paper attends to a particular silent protest and affirms it as a tactic employed by an emergent political collectivity to make itself perceptible, declare an injustice and challenge institutional power. As such, the silent event under scrutiny does not merely invite a turning of our attention to a practice that breaks the association of the political subject with the speaking subject; it also invites a reconsideration of what we are accustomed to accept as political activism. 'Keeping silent' is a critical practice, indeed, because it manifests an alternative possibility of being and acting; in so doing, it disrupts established patterns of thought and practice, and more specifically the rigid distinction between speech and silence.

AbstractRecent actions in Congress that threaten political science funding by the National Science Foundation (NSF) have caught the attention of political scientists, but this was not the first attack and not likely to be the last. Less than one year ago, the Harper government ended the Understanding Canada program, an important source of funding for academics in the United States and abroad. This article stresses the value of the program and the importance of this funding steam by demonstrating what the grants have done both more generally as well as for the authors individually. In addition, by looking at the political process that led to the end of the Understanding Canada program and the similarities in the attacks on NSF political science funding, this article identifies potential reasons why these funds were and are at risk. We conclude by arguing that normative action in support of political science is a necessity for all political scientists.

An essential guide for Political Science educators at all stages in their career. This solid compendium offers a state of the discipline overview of teaching practices and challenges, providing a sound base for designing engaging active learning activities.