Political Science 907
Quantitative Research Methods in International Studies

Course Description

This course is a practical introduction to contemporary quantitative research methods in international politics. It will emphasize hands-on exercises with the data and some of the techniques most commonly used in international politics, as well as with the problems of research design, modelling and testing hypotheses about international behavior. Topics include practical issues in regression analysis; computer programming, dynamic modeling, event data and content analysis, time series techniques, and classification methods such as cluster analysis.

Prerequisites:

Texts:

Comments on readings:

1. The "Additional" readings are mostly texts and reference works relevant to the topic, along with some examples of applications.

2. The readings over-sample from the works of P. Schrodt. This does not mean these works are the finest available in political science, merely that their mode of presentation tends to be compatible with how I teach. When you prepare your own syllabi, I would expect you to be less dependent on the works of this author.

Evaluation:

Pedagogy

There is no research paper required in the course but several of the exercises will be fairly time-consuming. Because this is the most advanced methodology course we offer, some of the data sets used in exercises will be presented in "as is" condition (i.e. as I received them): lousy documentation, unknown codes, unexplained missing cases etc. You should cope with these using your best professional judgement; I'll be available for advice but not hand-holding. Most exercises will be fairly open-ended: I will typically give you a data set and ask you to explore a plausible hypothesis of your own creation using a particular method, rather than asking you to test a specific hypothesis. If you would like to work with a data set other than the one I provide in class, you are welcome to substitute it assuming it contains variables appropriate to the methods we are studying.

COURSE TOPICS, EXERCISES AND READING ASSIGNMENTS

Week 1: Introduction (13 January)
Survey of the class, discussion of the general teaching and research approach

Readings:

Eckstein, Harry. "Case Study and Theory in Political Science" in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson W. Polsby. 1975. Handbook of Political Science: Strategies of Inquiry. Addison-Wesley

Most, Benjamin A. and Harvey Starr, "Foreign Policy Substitution and 'Nice' Laws", chpt 5 in Most and Starr, Inquiry, Logic and International Politics (South Carolina University Press, 1989)

Bull, Hedley. International Theory: The Case for the Classical Approach. World Politics 18: 361-378.

Donald N. McClosky. "The Rhetoric of Significance Tests", chapter 9 in McCloskey, The Rhetoric of Economics (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985)

Exercise:

Additional:

General remarks on bibliography: The primary journals featuring quantitative and modeling research in international relations -- beyond the basic crosstabulation/regression approach -- are International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution and International Interactions. The American Journal of Political Science and American Political Science Review are also good sources; AJPS publishes very little IR but its Workshop sections provide excellent overviews of newer techniques. Over the past decade World Politics has begun to publish some quantitative work, and an assortment of smaller specialized journals -- for example Conflict Management and Peace Science -- feature a variety of articles on formal methods.

• George, Alexander L. 1979. Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused Comparison in Paul G. Lauren ed. Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory and Policy. New York: Free Press, pp. 43-68
• Holsti, K.J. 1985. The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory. Boston: Allen and Unwin.
• Knorr, Klaus and James Rosenau. 1970. Contending Approaches to International Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• Nicholson, Michael. 1989. Formal Theories of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [most recent fairly comprehensive survey of IR models]
• Vasquez, John A. 1976. "Statistical Findings in International Politics." International Studies Quarterly 20:171-218. [a statistical study of statistical studies]
• Vasquez, John A. and Marie T. Henehan. 1992. The Scientific Study of Peace and War. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. [undergraduate text on quantitative methods of studying war, mostly from a COW approach.]
• Zinnes, Dina A. 1976. Contemporary Research in International Relations. New York: Free Press. [good coverage of first generation of behavioralist models]

Weeks 2-5 (20 January -- 10 February) Computer Programming

Readings:

Additional:

With the ascendency of personal computer, the literature on computer programming has grown exponentially. The Oread Bookstore in the Union has two aisles worth; Borders Books has at least twice that. Browse.  The following are a few reference books on algorithms; if you are dealing with a standard operation -- sorting, indexing, graphics , minimizing a function, generating random numbers -- it is a good idea to check some standard references, since the most efficient algorithms are usually anything but obvious. If you are embarking on a large project, it is also worthwhile to consult some works on software development: the amount of time a given project takes can vary by a factor of 20 or more depending on its planning, so investing time in study will pay off in reduced time debugging.

• Press, William H, Brian P. Flannery, Saul Teukolsky and William T. Vetterling. 1986. Numerical Recipes: The Art of Scientific Computing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (this is an excellent reference for algorithms used in statistical computing; I've also got a disk that contains the code for all of the sample programs in the event you don't wish to retype them]
• Sedgewick, Robert. 1988. Algorithms. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Gonnet, G.H. 1984. Handbook of Algorithms and Data Structures. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Kernighan, Brian and P.J. Plauger. 1981. Software Tools in Pascal. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• ___________ 1978. Elements of Programming Style. New York: McGraw-Hill(these books are useful because they discuss how to program well in addition to discussing programming)
• Bentley, Jon. 1986. Programming Pearls. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley
• __________ 1988. More Programming Pearls. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.(highly recommended by McConnell)
• McConnell, Steve. 1993. Code Complete. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Press. (this is an encyclopedic [830 pp] reference that discusses both the macro issues of project design and control, and the micro issues of coding and data structures. Good references to quantitative studies of factors affecting software development)
• Weinberg, Gerald M. 1971. The Psychology of Computer Programming. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. (just what it says: human factors in software development)
• Brooks, Frederick P. 1974. The Mythical Man-Month. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.(Case study in the [mis]management a large programming project. The five-second summary: "The fact that one woman can produce a child in nine months does not imply that nine women can produce a child in one month." )

Week 6: ( 17 February)
Review of basic regression and exploratory data analysis

Readings:

Review everything you've read and forgotten about multiple regression from POLS 706 and 707. The focus of the class will be going over the interpretation of a regression analysis and the various things that can go wrong with it.

WARNING:Past experience with this exercise has demonstrated that the level of retention of this material is quite low; to minimize the level of humilitation, review it.

King, Gary. 1986. How Not to Lie with Statistics. American Journal of Political Science 30,3: 666-687.

Additional:

• Diaconis, Persi and Bradley Efron. 1983. "Computer-Intensive Methods in Statistics". Scientific American. 248,5:116-130 [nice description of bootstrapping]
• Berry, William D. and Stanley Feldman. 1985. Multiple Regression in Practice. Beverely Hills: Sage.
• Berry, William D. and Stanley Feldman. 1985. Understanding Regression Assumptions. Beverely Hills: Sage.
• Everitt, B.S. and G. Dunn. 1983. Advanced Methods of Data Exploration and Modeling. London: Heinemann Books
• Fox, John. 1991. Regression Diagnostics. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. [I like this book a lot -- it shows how diagnosing problems in regression can go well beyond eye-ball tests]
• Freedman, David Robert Pisani and Rogers Purves. 1978. Statistics. New York: Norton (this is the archetypical, and controversial, "new wave" statistics textbook -- lots of pictures, no equations)
• Jaccard, James, Robert Turrisi and Choi K. Wan. 1990. Interaction Effects in Multiple Regression. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. [next step beyond dummy variables]
• Mooney, Christopher Z. and Robert D. Duval. 1993. Bootstrapping: A Nonparametric Approach to Statistical Inference. Newbury Park: Sage.

Week 7 ( 24 February)
Univariate Dynamic Models and Chaos

Readings:

Schrodt, "Dynamic Models" chapter

L. Douglas Kiel and Euel Elliott. 1996. Chaos Theory in the Social Sciences. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Introduction; Chapter 1, 2, and 7

Additional

General references on difference equations

• Goldberg, Samuel. 1958, 1986. Introduction to Difference Equations. New York: Wiley (1986 edition by Dover)
• Huckfeldt, R. Robert, C.W. Kohfeld, and Thomas W. Likens. 1982. Dynamic Modelling: An Introduction. Beverly Hills: Sage.
• Kelley, Walter G. and Allan C. Peterson. 1991. Difference Equations: An Introduction with Applications. Boston: Academic Press.
• Lakshmikantham, V. and D. Trigiante. 1988. Theory of Difference Equations: Numerical Methods and Applications. New York: Academic Press.
• Luenberger, David G.. 1979. Introduction to Dynamic Systems: Theory, Models and Applications. New York: Wiley. [good introduction to applications of differential equation models]
• Mickens, Ronald E. 1990. Difference Equations: Theory and Applications. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
• Olinick, Michael. 1978. An Introduction to Mathematical Models in the Social and Life Sciences. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley.

Chaos:

• Barton, Scott. 1994. "Chaos, Self-Organization and Psychology." American Psychologist 49: 5-14. [short discussion of the advantages and problems of trying to apply chaos to human behavior]
• Brown, Courtney. 1995. Chaos and Catastrophe Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. [the Courtney Brown; not clear whether it was written in consultation with aliens...]
• Casti, John L. 1989. Alternative Realities: Mathematical Models of Nature and Man. New York: Wiley. [excellent coverage of both chaos and evolutionary models, though the mathematics gets a little heavy at times. The discussions are readable though.]
• Devaney, Robert L. 1986. An Introduction to Chaotic Dynamical Systems. Menlo Park: Cummings. [fairly heavy mathematicsÉ]
• Gleick, James. 1987. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Viking.[how to write a best-seller about mathematical modellingÉ]
• Hill, Walter W. 1992. "Deterministic Quasi-Periodic Behavior of an Arms Race Model". Conflict Management and Peace Science 12:79-98.
• Richards, Diana. 1992. "Spatial Correlation Test for Chaotic Dynamics in Political Science." American Journal of Political Science 36:1047-1069
• Richards, Diana. 1993. "A Chaotic Model of Power Concentration in the International System". International Studies Quarterly 37:55-72.
• Saperstein, Alvin M. and Gottfried Mayer-Kress. 1988. "A Nonlinear Model of the Impact of SDI on the Arms Race." Journal of Conflict Resolution 32,4: 636-670. [application of chaos theory to the arms race problem]
• Saperstein, Alvin M. 1992. "Alliance Building versus Independent Action: A Nonlinear Modeling Approach to Comparative International Stability" Journal of Conflict Resolution 36: 518-545. [application of chaos theory to crisis stability]

Week 8 (3 March)
Dynamic Models: Systems

Readings:

Schrodt, "Dynamic Systems" chapter.

Francisco, Ronald A. 1996. "Coercion and Protest: An Empirical Evaluation in Two Democratic States" American Journal of Political Science 40,4: 1179-1204

Optional Review: J. Johnston. 1972. Econometrics. New York: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 4 (linear algebra)

Additional:

Note: The general books on difference equations cited above also deal with systems.

• Intriligator, Michael D. and Dagobert L. Brito. 1989. "Richardsonian Arms Race Models" in Manus Midlarsky, ed. Handbook of War Studies. Boston: Unwin Hyman. [Emphases the rational variants on the model]
• Luterbacher, Urs and Michael Don Ward (eds.). 1985. Dynamic Models of International Conflict. Boulder,CO: Lynne Rienner Publishing.
• May, Robert M. 1974. Stability and Complexity in Model Ecosystems. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• McGinnis, Michael D. 1991. "Richardson, Rationality and Restrictive Models of Arms Races." Journal of Conflict Resolution 35:443-473. [Extensive bibliography. The literature on the Richardson model is huge -- a couple hundred articles -- and I've got some other bibliographies if you are interested.]
• Mintz, Alex and Michael D. Ward. 1989. "The Political Economy of Military Spending in Israel". American Political Science Review 83:521-533. [nice example of the specification and numerical estimation of a dynamic model]
• Rapoport, Anatol. 1974. Fights, Games and Debates. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Richardson, Lewis F. 1960. Statistics of Deadly Quarrels. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.
• Richardson, Lewis F. 1960. Arms and Insecurity. Chicago: Quadrangle Books.

Week 9 (10 March)
Introduction to Time Series Analysis

Readings:

Additional:

General books on time series [this is just a sample]

• T.W. Anderson, T.W.. 1972. The Statistical Analysis of Time Series. New York: Wiley. [very nice mathematical treatment of the basic processes]
• Box, George E.P. and G.M. Jenkins. 1970. Time-series Analysis: Forecasting and Control. San Francisco: Holden-Day [this is the original exposition of the Box-Jenkins-Tiao techniques; it is not particularly easy to read and more recent treatments would be better]
• Chatfield, C. 1989. The Analysis of Time Series: An Introduction. London: Chapman and Hall.
• Gottman, John M.. 1981. Time-Series Analysis: A Comprehensive Introduction for Social Scientists. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
• Granger, C.W.J. and Paul Newbold. 1986. Forecasting Economic Time Series. San Diego: Academic Press.
• Hamilton, James D. 1994. Time Series Analysis. Princeton: Princeton University Press. [pretty much the standard reference at the moment. Weighs a ton; costs a fortune...]
• Harvey, Andrew C. 1993. Time Series Models. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Kendall, M.G.. 1973. Time-Series. New York: Hafner Press [excellent, if terse, practical introduction to the basic techniques]
• Ostrom, Charles W.. 1978. Time Series Analysis: Regression Techniques. Beverly Hills: Sage [deals primarily with autocorrelated error but has some discussion of correlograms]
• Nelson, Charles R. and Leejoon Kang. 1984. "Pitfalls in the Use of Time as an Explanatory Variable in Regression". Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. 2,1:73-82. (CC)
• Stimson, James A.. 1985. "Regression in Time and Space: A Statistical Essay". American Journal of Political Science 29,4:914-947.

Week 10 (17 March)
Time Series Analysis: Tests of Causality

Readings:

Enders, Walter and Todd Sandler. 1993. "The Effectiveness of Antiterrorism Policies: A Vector-Autoregression-Intervention Analysis." American Political Science Review 87:829-844.

Freeman, John. 1983. "Granger Causality and Time Series Analysis of Political Relationships". American Journal of Political Science. 27,2:327-358

Freeman, John R, John T. Williams and Tse-Min Lin. 1989. Vector Autoregression and the Study of Politics." American Journal of Political Science. 33:825-841

Kinsella, David. 1994. "Conflict in Context: Arms Transfers and Third World Rivalries during the Cold War." American Journal of Political Science. 38,3:557-581

[just skim the next two...]

Sheehan ,Richard G. and Robin Grieves. 1982. "Sunspots and Cycles: A Test of Causation". Southern Economic Journal (January 1982):775-777. [statistical demonstration that business cycles cause sunspots]

Thurman, Walter N. and Mark E. Fisher. 1988. Chickens, Eggs and Causality, or Which Came First? American Journal of Agricultural Economics 70(2):237-238.[statistical demonstration that eggs cause chickens but not vice versa]

Additional:

• Beck, Nathaniel. 1983. "Time-Varying Parameter Regression Models" American Journal of Political Science. 27:557-600. [discussion of various tests for determining whether a change has occurred in the parameters of a time series model]
• Beck, Nathaniel1991. "The Illusion of Cycles in International Relations." International Studies Quarterly 35,4: 455-476. [also reply by Goldstein]
• Davis, David R. and Michael D. Ward. 1990. "They Dance Alone: Deaths and the Disappeared in Contemporary Chile". Journal of Conflict Resolution 34: 449-475. {VAR/event data analysis of causes and effects of repressive activities in Chile].
• Geller, Daniel S. 1993. "Power Differentials and War in Rival Dyads." International Studies Quarterly 37:173-193. [Markov chain analysis]
• Goldstein, J. S., and John. R. Freeman (1990) Three-Way Street: Strategic Reciprocity in World Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [extensive VAR analysis of event data]
• McCleary, Richard and Richard A. Hay Jr. 1980. Applied Time Series Analysis for the Social Sciences. Beverly Hills: Sage. [one of the more readable expositions on quasi-experimental design and Box-Jenkins]
• McDowall,David D., Richard McCleary, Errol E. Meidinger and Richard A. Hay. 1980. Interupted Time Series Analysis. Beverly Hills: Sage [this also has a good bibliography ]
• McGinnis, Michael D. and John T. Williams. 1989. "Change and Stability in Superpower Rivalry" American Political Science Review 83:1101-1123. [VAR analysis using COPDAB, military expenditures; similar in approach to Goldstein and Freeman]

-------- SPRING AND ISA BREAK --------

Week 11 (31 March)
KEDS and Event Data Analysis

Readings:

Schrodt, Philip A. and Deborah J. Gerner. 1998. The Analysis of International Event Data. (unpublished manuscript) Chapters 1 and 2.

Laurence, Edward J. 1990. "Events Data and Policy Analysis." Policy Sciences 23:111-132.

Leng, Russell J. and J. David Singer. 1988. "Militarized Interactive Crisises: The BCOW Typology and Its Applications." International Studies Quarterly 32:155-1174.

Additional:

• Andriole, Stephen J. and Gerald W. Hopple. 1984. "The Rise and Fall of Events Data: From Basic Research to Applied Use in the U.S. Department of Defense." International Interactions 11:293-309.
• Azar, Edward E. 1982. The Codebook of the Conflict and Peace Data Bank (COPDAB) . College Park, MD: Center for International Development, University of Maryland.
• Azar, Edward E., Richard A. Brody and Charles A. McClelland (eds.) 1972. International Events Interaction Analysis: Some Research Considerations. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
• Azar, Edward E. and Joseph Ben-Dak. 1975. Theory and Practice of Events Research. New York: Gordon and Breach.
• Burgess, Philip M. and Raymond W. Lawton. 1972. Indicators of International Behavior: An Assessment of Events Data Research. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
• Daly, Judith Ayres and Stephen J. Andriole. 1980. "The Use of Events/Interaction Research by the Intelligence Community." Policy Sciences 12:215-236.
• Gerner, Deborah J., Philip A. Schrodt, Ronald A. Francisco, and Judith L. Weddle. 1994. The Machine Coding of Events from Regional and International Sources, International Studies Quarterly 38:91-119.
• Heise, David. 1988b. "Computer Analysis of Cultural Structures." Social Science Computer Review 6:183-196.
• Hermann, Charles, Maurice A. East, Margaret G. Hermann, Barbara G. Salmore, and Stephen A. Salmore. 1973. CREON: A Foreign Events Data Set. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
• Hoople, Gerald W., Stephen J. Andriole and Amos Freedy (eds.). 1984. National Security Crisis Forecasting and Management. Boulder: Westview Press.
• International Studies Quarterly. 1983. "Symposium: Event data Collections." International Studies Quarterly 27.
• Lehnert, Wendy and B. Sundheim. 1991 "A Performance Evaluation of Text Analysis." AI Magazine 12:81-94.
• McClelland, Charles A. 1961. "The Acute International Crisis." World Politics 14:184-204.
• McGowan, Patrick, Harvey Starr, Gretchen Hower, Richard L. Merritt and Dina A. Zinnes. 1988. "International Data as a National Resource." International Interactions 14:101-113.
• Merritt, Richard L., Robert G. Muncaster and Dina A. Zinnes (eds.) 1993. International Event Data Developments: DDIR Phase II. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
• Munton, Donald. 1978. Measuring International Behavior: Public Sources, Events and Validity. Dalhousie University: Centre for Foreign Policy Studies.
• Peterson, Sophia. 1975. "Research on research: Events data studies, 1961-1972." In Patrick J. McGowan (ed.) Sage International Yearbook on Foreign Policy Studies, 3. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
• Schrodt, Philip A. and Alex Mintz. 1988. "A Conditional Probability Analysis of Regional Interactions in the Middle East." American Journal of Political Science 32: 217-230.
• Schrodt, Philip A., and Deborah J. Gerner. 1994. "Statistical Patterns in a Dense Event Data Set for the Middle East, 1982-1992." American Journal of Political Science 38.
• Sigler, John H., John O. Field and Murray L. Adelman. 1972. Applications of Event Data Analysis: Cases, Issues and Programs in International Interaction. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.
• Vincent, Jack E. 1983. "WEIS vs. COPDAB: Correspondence Problems." International Studies Quarterly 27:160-169.

Week 12 (7 April)
Content Analysis

Readings:

Weber, Robert Philip. 1990. Basic Content Analysis. Newbury Park: Sage.

Walker, Stephen, Mark Schafer and Michael D. Young. 1998. "Systematic Procedures for Operational Code Analysis: Measuring and Modeling Jimmy Carter's Operational Code." International Studies Quarterly 42, 175-190.

Blanton, Shannon Lindsey. 1996. "Images in Conflict: The Case of Ronald Reagan and El Salvador." International Studies Quarterly 40, 23-44.

Additional:

Weber has an extensive bibliography of the classic human-coded content analysis methods.

For a current overview of the machine-coding software, William Evans at Georgia State has assembled a very nice set of pointers to most of the available programs: http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwcom/content.html

The following books provide useful overviews of the general topic of text processing; these techniques go well beyond content analysis

• Beardon, Colin, David Lumsden and Geoff Holmes. 1991. Natural Language and Computational Linguistics: An Introduction. New York: Ellis Horwood.
• Roberts, Carl W. 1997. Text Analysis for the Social Sciences. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbum
• Salton, Gerard. 1989. Automatic Text Processing. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
• Smith, Peter. 1990. An Introduction to Text Processing. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Week 13: (6 April)
Cluster analysis and nearest-neighbor techniques

Readings:

Everitt, Brian. 1980. Cluster Analysis (2nd ed.) New York:Wiley/Halsted. pp. 1-58 [just read for the concepts; don't try to get all of the math]

Schrodt, Patterns, Rules and Learning, chapter 5, section on nearest neighbor methods

Schrodt, Philip A. and Deborah J. Gerner. 1996. "Using Cluster Analysis to Derive Early Warning Indicators for Political Change in the Middle East, 1979-1996." Paper presented at the American Political Science Association meetings.

Additional:

• Aldenderfer, Mark S. and Roger K. Blashfield. 1984. Cluster Analysis. Newbury Park: Sage.
• Aldrich, John and Charles F. Cnudde. 1975. "Probing the Bounds of Conventional Wisdom: A Comparison of Regression, Probit and Discriminant Analysis." American Journal of Political Science 19,3:571-608. [comparison of these methods; shows that there isn't a whole heck of a lot of difference]
• Anderson, E.B.. 1980. Discrete Statistical Models with Social Science Applications. Amsterdam: Elsevier/North Holland.
• Bailey, Kenneth D. 1994. Typologies and Taxonomies: An Introduction to Classification Techniques. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Dunteman, George H. 1989. Principle Components Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
• Feinberg, S.E.. 1977. The Analysis of Cross-Classified Categorical Data. Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Greenacre, Michael J. 1984. Theory and Applications of Correspondence Analysis. New York: Academic Press.
• Klecka, William. 1978. Discriminant Analysis. Beverly Hills: Sage
• Malhotra, Naresh K.. 1983. "A Comparison of the Predictive Validity of Procedures for Analyzing Binary Data". Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 1,4:326-336 [another comparison of regression, discriminant, logit and probit -- again, not a lot of difference]
• Schalkoff, Robert. 1992. Pattern Recognition: Statistical, Structural and Neural Approaches. New York: Wiley. [nice combination of statistical and computational approaches]

Week 14 (21 April)
Event History Analysis and Sequence Analysis Methods

Readings:

Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier and Bradford S. Jones. "Time is of the Essence: Event History Models in Political Science. American Journal of Political Science 41,4:1414-1461

King, Gary. 1989. "Event Count Models for International Relations: Generalizations and Applications" International Studies Quarterly 33(2):123-148.

Schrodt, Philip A. and Deborah J. Gerner. 1998. The Analysis of International Event Data. (unpublished manuscript) Chapter 5 (hidden Markov models).

Additional:

• Allison, Paul D. 1984. Event History Analysis Beverly Hills: Sage
• Bartholomew, J.D. 1973. Stochastic Models of Social Processes. New York: Wiley. [good general introduction to stochastic models; most of the examples are from sociology]
• Casstevens, Thomas W. 1989. "The Circulation of Elites: A Review and Critique of a Class of Models." American Journal of Political Science 33: 294-317. [covers a lot of the Poisson stuff]
• Houweling, Henk W. and J. B. Kune. 1984. "Do Outbreaks of War Follow a Poisson-Process?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 28,1: 51-62.
• Houweling, Henk W. and Jan G. Siccama. 1985. "The Epidemeology of War, 1816-1980." Journal of Conflict Resolution 29,4: 641-664.
• King, Gary. 1989. Unifying Political Methodology: The Likelihood Theory of Statistical Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [maximum likelihood methods applied to various models of political behavior]
• Midlarsky, Manus I. 1986. "A Hierarchical Equilibrium Theory of Systemic War. "International Studies Quarterly 30,1:77-106
• Richardson, Lewis F. 1960b. Statistics of Deadly Quarrels. Pittsburgh, PA: Boxwood Press. [original Poisson test on war distribution]
• Schrodt, Philip A. 1985. The Role of Stochastic Models in International Relations Research. pp. 199-221 in Michael Don Ward (ed.) Theories, Models and Simulation in International Relations. Boulder, CO: Westview.

Week 15 (28 April)
Survival Skills

Readings:

Wilkinson, Leland. 1989. "Cognitive science and graphic design" chapter in SYGRAPH: The System for Graphics. Evanston, IL: SYSTAT,Inc.

Carlson, Maria. n.d. "Submitting a Grant Proposal". manuscript, University of Kansas Center for Russian and East European Studies.

Schrodt, Philip A. and Deborah J. Gerner. 1994. "NSF Proposal: Development of Machine-Coded Event Data Techniques for the Analysis of Political Behavior".
[okay, it's that Schrodt guy again. But in our defense, KU uses this in their grant-writing workshops for junior faculty as an example of how to write a good proposal. And the bottom line: it was funded!]

RAND Corporation. 1996. "Guideline for Preparing Briefings". Santa Monica, CA: Communications Consulting Group, RAND.

National Science Foundation. 1997. "Grant Proposal Guide" Chapter 2.

Additional:

Statistical Graphics

Wilkinson has an extensive bibliography of articles; the key thing to keep in mind is that good statistical graphics are carefully designed based on the characteristics of human visual perception; they don't simply arise by luck (bad statistical graphics can also be carefully designed: consult any issue of USA Today or Time). You might also find it useful to browse a couple of books on basic graphical design; the bookstore has dozens of them in the art section.

• Cleveland, W.S. 1985. The Elements of Graphing Data. Monterey,CA: Wadsworth.
• Tufte, Edward R. 1983. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Cheshire, CT: Graphics Press.
• Tukey, John W. 1977. Exploratory Data Analysis. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.