Jennifer Dresden
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 507

Political scientists, including those that make their primary careers within traditional university roles, have increasingly expressed interest in doing work that influences public debate and that uses their expertise for purposes outside of traditional academic functions. There is widespread recognition that many areas of public policy would benefit from being better informed by the kind of expertise rooted in rigorous research and scholarly training.

The proposed short course is designed as a one-day professional development session for advanced graduate students and early- and mid-career scholars. Its goal is to offer a preliminary introduction to the knowledge and skills that enable academics to be effective partners in advocacy.

The short course is designed to focus on advocacy within the context of the United States, and many of the examples used will involve cases related to policies and reforms focused on strengthening American democracy. However, the training itself is focused on skills rather than substance, and scholars with all areas of expertise are welcome.

The sessions within the short course will be led by Protect Democracy staff and scholars with experience bridging the divide between academia and public policy debates.

Topics include designing and adapting research programs for value to policymakers, writing for general audiences, communicating outside the ivory tower, and understanding differences between engagement at the local, state, and national levels.

Andrew Stinson
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM 
Los Angeles Convention Center, 405

Andrew Stinson
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM 
Los Angeles Convention Center, 404B

Tasha Fairfield
1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 406A

This short course introduces participants to the Bayesian logic of qualitative case studies, with practical advice, examples, and small-group exercises to enable them to use this method in their work. It builds on Social Inquiry and Bayesian Inference: Rethinking Qualitative Research, by Tasha Fairfield and Andrew Charman (Cambridge University Press, 2022). The material presented here complements the morning short course on process tracing led by Andrew Bennett, Jeffrey T. Checkel, and Tasha Fairfield, but each course can also be usefully taken independently from the other.

The core idea motivating this course is that the way we intuitively approach qualitative case research is similar to how we read detective novels. We consider various different hypotheses to explain what occurred—whether the emergence of democracy in South Africa, or the death of Samuel Ratchett on the Orient Express—drawing on the literature we have read (e.g. theories of regime change, or other Agatha Christie mysteries) and any salient previous experiences we have had. As we gather evidence and discover new clues, we update our beliefs about which hypothesis provides the best explanation—or we may introduce a new alternative that occurs to us along the way.

Bayesianism provides a natural framework that is both logically rigorous and grounded in common sense, that governs how we should revise our degree of belief in the truth of a hypothesis—e.g., “mobilisation from below drove democratization in South Africa by altering economic elites’ regime preferences,” (Wood 2001), or “a lone gangster sneaked onboard the train and killed Ratchett as revenge for being swindled”—given our relevant prior knowledge and new information that we obtain during our investigation. Bayesianism is enjoying a revival across many fields, and it offers a powerful tool for improving inference and analytic transparency in qualitative research.

The first part of this course introduces basic principles of Bayesian reasoning with the goal of helping us leverage common-sense understandings of inference and improve intuition when conducting causal analysis with qualitative evidence. We begin with the general logic of Bayesian inference, that is, how we update our prior view about which explanation is more plausible when we learn new evidence. We explain the importance of working with rival hypotheses and discusses how to formulate well-constructed explanations to compare. We then elaborate practical procedures for evaluating the inferential import of the evidence by “mentally inhabiting” the world of each hypothesis and asking which one makes the evidence more expected, and then updating our prior views about which hypothesis provides the best explanation. We include examples and exercises to illustrate how this process works with real-world qualitative evidence.

The second part of the course turns to comparative case studies. Methodological literature often treats cross-case (e.g., comparative) analysis and within-case analysis (e.g., process tracing) as distinct analytical endeavors that draw on different logics of inference. Within a Bayesian framework, however, there are no fundamental distinctions; all evidence contributes to inference in the same manner, whether we are studying a single case or multiple cases. In essence, each piece of evidence we obtain weighs in favor of one explanation over a rival to some degree, which we assess by asking which explanation makes that evidence more expected. Evidentiary weight then aggregates both within any given case, and across different cases that fall within the scope of the theories we are testing. In addition to showing how this process works with examples drawn from published comparative case studies, we will introduce a Bayesian approach to case selection and discuss how to articulate scope conditions and tentatively generalize our hypotheses.

Note: This course does not require any prior training in process training, Bayesianism, probability theory, or logic. The only technical skills that will be assumed are basic arithmetic.

Joerg Luedicke
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 510

In this workshop, we discuss methods for drawing causal inferences when analyzing observational rather than experimental data. We present a variety of estimators for average treatment effects (ATEs) and average treatment effects on the treated (ATETs) and discuss when each estimator is useful. Throughout the workshop, we cover the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of treatment effects and demonstrate the methods with many practical examples worked using Stata software.

After a discussion of the potential-outcome framework and an overview of the parameters estimated, the workshop introduces the following treatment-effect estimators

• regression-adjustment estimator
•  inverse-probability-weighted (IPW) estimator
• augmented IPW estimator
• IPW regression-adjustment estimator
• nearest-neighbor matching estimator
• propensity-score matching estimator
• difference-in-differences (DID)

The course also discusses

• standard errors and diagnostics for DID estimation
• double-robustness property of the augmented IPW and IPW regression-adjustment
• estimators using different functional forms for outcome model and treatment
• model multivalued treatments
• estimators when the treatment is endogenous

The discussion of estimators that handle an endogenously assigned treatment includes extended regression model (ERM) estimators, which can also account for other complications in observational data such as endogenous sample selection and endogenous regressors.

All topics are discussed using a combination of theory and Stata examples.

David Samuels
Half Day, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 407

Invitation Only Course 

This workshop gives younger scholars who might not otherwise have the opportunity a chance to obtain in-depth feedback on an project in development. The workshop is sponsored by Section 35, Democracy & Autocracy.

David Samuels
Half Day, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 407

Invitation Only Course 

In this workshop, a yearly even sponsored by Section 35, we offer the opportunity for four selected graduate students working on issues pertinent to the section to present their work and have it critiqued and discussed at length by four senior scholars.

Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 512

Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
This is being held as a virtual event. Please contact the organizer for access.

Virtual Workshop

Devon Cantwell-Chavez
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

Do you need to make an academic website? Are you an early career scholar?

In this early career researcher (ECR) website workshop, you’ll learn the basics of building an academic website, have supported time to begin building your website, and feedback from peers and mentors. The day will be split into three parts. The first third of the workshop will include a session about basic features of academic websites as well as a panel featuring academics and industry professionals to speak about effective features of websites for academics. In the second section of the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to work 1:1 with mentors to design and begin building their website. The third section of the workshop will have participants present the prototype of their website, where they will receive feedback from mentors and peers. This workshop is open to ECRs in or pursuing both academic and non-academic professional roles.

Hillel Soifer
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 501B

Invitation Only Course 

At this invitation-only workshop oriented toward increasing the diversity of the QMMR community, six selected junior scholars will present for feedback their work-in-progress focused on qualitative and multi-method research methodology. Participants will present to an audience that includes their “methods mentor” and other invited members of the QMMR community.

Virtual Course

Emily Rains
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

The majority of the world’s population already live in cities, and as the Global South continues to rapidly urbanize, the global urban population will continue to increase by over two billion people in the next three decades. The process of rapid urbanization will have profound social, economic, and ultimately political implications. Across the Global South, many — and sometimes most — of the urban population live in informal settlements, in precarious housing with insecure property rights, and work in low-paying, volatile occupations in the informal economy. In the Global North, as well, urban housing is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many segments of society, leading to displacement and conflict over space. How will governments respond to increasing pressure over urban resources? And how do these trends shape everyday politics for city-dwellers around the world? Moreover, how can scholars generate timely evidence on these dynamic processes? And how can comparing the implications of urbanization across time and space further an understanding of the politics of cities? 

This full-day short course addresses these key questions. Drawing on a range of social science methods, this course interrogates how the unique characteristics of cities shape local politics around the world. In particular, it seeks papers that focus on several burgeoning themes in comparative urban politics research:  

• innovative data and approaches to studying urban politics 
• urbanization and the changing role of urban politics 
• subnational and multi-city comparative work   
• local environment and urban politics  

This short course will primarily take place on-site and will include a combination of lightning talks, paper presentations, and book workshops. After each panel, a discussant will summarize key themes and additional research questions that emerge from that panel (rather than providing feedback on individual papers) before turning to the audience Q&A. These short discussions will help inform the final broader discussion at the end of the course about a possible special issue or edited volume and future directions in the study of comparative urban politics. We will then move off-site to continue the discussion at a happy hour. 

Amy Mazur
Half Day, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 409B

Co Sponsors: FPG-AFSP Associate Group and Women,
Gender and Politics Research Agenda Division
Organized by Summer Forester (Carleton College ) and Amy G. Mazur (Washington State University)

Overview
The goal of this short course is to bring together leading experts of gender equality machineries across the globe to identify and discuss the current research agenda for studying these complex and crucial institutions. The OSCE guide, Institutional Machineries for Gender Equality as Critical Actors: A Guide for Success (2023), based on a mixed methods study conducted in the 56 participating state of the Organization for Security and Cooperation of Europe, under Amy G. Mazur’s direction, will be used as a starting point for the discussion of emerging research agendas. An e-version of the guide will be made available to registered participants prior to the course. Presenters will be given 15 minutes each to discuss their research and time will be left for discussion and questions from the audience after the presentation for each session.

SESSION 1. INTRODUCTIONS AND GOALS
Summer Forester (Carleton College)
Amy G. Mazur (Washington State University)

SESSION 2. THE RESEARCH AGENDA FOR IMs IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH
Middle East and North Africa
Summer Forester (Carleton College)
Algeria – Meriam Aissa (Texas Women’s University)
Latin America
Gisela Zaremberg (Flacso, Mexico)
South Asia
Tanushree Goyal (Princeton University)
Indonesia- Lina Knorr (Humboldt University)

SESSION 3. THE RESEARCH AGENDA FOR IMs IN THE GLOBAL NORTH
Central Eastern Europe
Ingrid Bego (Western Carolina University
Western Europe
France – Emmanuelle LeTour (Sciences Po )
Nordic Countries — Lenita Freidenvall ( University of Stockholm)
North America
USA – Ashley English (University of North Texas) and Karine Lepillez ( Georgetown University)

SESSION 4: GLOBAL AND CROSS-NATIONAL PERSPECTIVES
Laurel Weldon (Simon Fraser University)
Jacqui True (Monash University)
Ragnhild Murriaas (University of Bergen)

Elizabeth Menninga
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 511B

This daylong workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on the cutting end of network analysis in political science. This workshop will include those advancing network methodology with new measures, estimators, and models (both quantitative and qualitative) as well as those advancing network theory and application. Network analysis provides a common language for social scientists interested in understanding how the connections and relationships between the actors we care about (from rebel groups to members of Congress to voters around the world) shape the attitudes and actions of political actors. While the last decade has seen great advancement both methodologically and theoretically, having a common forum to share cutting edge work, receive feedback from others exploring questions of relation and connection, and present innovations ensures the continued growth of this work across substantive areas of APSA.

The workshop will be designed to bring together graduate students, junior scholars, and senior scholars engaging in political network work. We will showcase 14 new projects with time for discussion and feedback for each. Discussants will also be recruited to provide written feedback on each presentation as well. Audience participation is welcome as this workshop will not be invitation only. During lunch, participants will be encouraged to further conversations started during the workshop as well as provide mentorship for junior participants. We hope to also encourage participation in a post workshop dinner to further these conversations and solidify connections and collaborations.

Jeffrey T. Checkel and Vincent Pouliot
Half Day, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 406B

This short course outlines the logic and best practices of interpretive process tracing / practice tracing, providing students with advice and examples to enable them to use this method in their work. The course does not require any prior background in interpretive epistemology or training in interpretive analysis, and is designed to complement the APSA short course led by Andy Bennett, Jeff Checkel, and Tasha Fairfield.

We begin, meta-theoretically and conceptually, by building on the practice turn in sociology and political science. Epistemologically, practice tracing combines continental interpretism with American pragmatism. Ontologically, practice tracing is built on a relational understanding of the social world, which places the analytic focus squarely on process. Proceeding from these meta-theoretical priors, process is now understood as social practices or ways of doing things. We consider various instances of such practices, with examples ranging from the politics of international organizations to the dynamics of identity construction.

The core of the course then examines how we can empirically measure and access social practices, using the data to conduct practice tracing. We start with ethnography and political ethnography, viewed by many as the ‘gold standard’ for accessing social practices. However, we also consider interpretive interviews and document analysis as additional methods to measure practices. In all cases, we consider the practical, data quality and ethical challenges of doing the practice tracing; this sets the stage for articulating an emerging set of best practices for interpretive process tracing.

We conclude this part of the course by sketching the cutting-edge challenges for practice tracers: (1) expanding and perhaps re-thinking their toolkit for accessing social practices; and (2) adding ethical reflexivity to how we go about practice tracing.

The course’s final hour is devoted to small-group breakout sessions, where participants workshop how they plan to use interpretive process tracing / practice tracing in their research. Are there meta-theoretical, data access, data collection, data analysis or ethical issues with which they are grappling? Instructors and fellow students will offer constructive advice on how best to address such challenges.

Dean Knox
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 506

Causal diagrams, or directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), are among the most widely used tools in causal inference. DAGs offer an accessible and intuitive way to explain data-generating processes and research designs. They help clarify theory, communicate assumptions, and formulate estimation strategies. A variety of free software tools now allow users to easily draw DAGs, assess whether quantities of interest are causally identified, and obtain causal bounds that are robust to common complications such as selection or mismeasurement.

In this full-day short course, we provide a comprehensive introduction to DAGs and their use in applied political science. The course begins by covering basic principles of causal graphs. It then illustrates how canonical research designs and common challenges in applied work can be concisely represented in the language of causal graphs. Substantial time is devoted to interactive practice for translating plain-language theory into caual diagrams and formal assumptions. The course concludes with a survey of freely available software tools for practitioners. Details are provided in the outline below.

Introduction to DAGs
– Counterfactuals
– Covariate adjustment
– Colliders
– D-separation

DAGs for canonical research designs and common challenges
– Canonical designs: SOO, IV, DID, RDD
– Common challenges: mismeasurement, missingness, selection
– Game theoretic models

Interactive exercises
– Translating theory into DAGs
– Practice and feedback on drawing DAGs

Software tools
– Graphical interfaces for drawing DAGs
– Assessing causal identification
– Bounds for partially identified quantities

Zoe Xincheng Ge
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 505

Graduate Students in International Political Economy Workshop (GSIPE) is a virtual, interdisciplinary, graduate-student-run workshop that connects graduate students (including pre-docs and post-docs) in Political Science and Economics with an interest in International Political Economy (IPE). For this pre-conference workshop, we seek to extend our existing virtual opportunities for junior IPE scholars by fostering in-person scholarly networks and by engaging in productive mentoring relationships to support their research.

Last year, we held the first pre-conference APSA workshop, which was our first in-person event since the foundation of the GSIPE in 2020. The workshop received 36 submissions and invited 12 presenters from institutions ranging from the US to Europe. It created a unique opportunity for graduate students to reconnect with each other in person, present their work, and receive feedback from their peers. Given the success, this year, we would like to continue fostering such intellectual networking opportunities. In particular, in support of the APSA 2023 Meeting conference theme, “Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Mis- and Disinformation”, we particularly welcome research that has policy implications on strategies to deal with misinformation from a transnational perspective.

Workshop participants will have the opportunity to present their research and receive in-depth feedback in small groups. Those who are interested in presenting research should submit a proposal no later than May 30, 2023, to GSIPE at gsipe.workshop@gmail.com. Proposals should include an abstract (300 words), and 3-5 keywords to help us find discussants and create small panels. We particularly welcome submissions from scholars who are underrepresented in IPE.

All participants (junior scholars and discussants) will need to register for the main APSA meeting. Please contact GSIPE organizers Anthony Calacino (anthony.calacino@utexas.edu), Zoe Ge (xg762@nyu.edu), or Elisa Navarra (Elisa.Navarra@ulb.be) with any questions.

Titus Alexander
Half Day, 1:30 Pm – 5:30 PM 
Los Angeles Convention Center, 515B

Humanity’s biggest and most difficult problems are political: domestic violence, conflict, discrimination, inequality, global heating, environment, trade policy, you name it. Yet there are still too few opportunities for people to develop practical political understanding, strategies and skills – unlike business, the biggest subject in higher education and online.

This short course covers a range of tried and tested methods for teaching non-partisan, practical politics across the curriculum, including how to

• make the most of ‘teachable moments’
• create learning communities in a class or lecture programme, using peer induction, electing class representatives and devils’ advocates; setting up study buddies, huddles, buzz groups and action learning sets;
• tackle controversial issues constructively
• make the most of invited activists, politicians and practitioners
• base assignments on real-life tasks, projects or community service
• explore issues of power and exclusion
• use Solutions Focus and Systems Thinking in political problem solving
• present theories as stories, pictures and diagrams
• teach Theories of Change and how to plan and develop a campaign
• evaluate the impact of your course

This course is participative and informative, enabling participants to share their experience and prioritise topics they wish to explore. This could include strategies for promoting learning for democracy across the curriculum or in education more widely.
This course draws on four decades of experience in civic education, engagement and advocacy at a local, national and international level; my book on ‘Practical Politics: Lessons in Power and Democracy’ (2016, UCL IoE/Trentham) on teaching democratic politics, and into increasing the impact of social science and evaluation of education.
Titus Alexander is a regular contributor to the World Forum for Democracy at the Council of Europe, and has published widely on deepening democracy, including Family Learning: The Foundation of Effective Education (Demos 1997), Citizenship Schools: A practical guide (2001), and Unravelling Global Apartheid: An overview of world politics (Polity/Blackwell’s, 1996). He runs an advanced apprenticeship in campaigning, leadership and management for trade unions and public sector managers in the UK. He founded Democracy Matters, an alliance for learning practical politics, Charter 99, and co-founded the Parenting Education and Support Forum.

Participants will receive practical templates for learning and teaching, course notes and slides, and can download a copy of ‘Practical Politics: Lessons in Power and Democracy’ here: https://bit.ly/PP-Final 
For a briefing paper on the case for teaching practical politics, examples and further reading download How Universities Can Make a Difference here: http://bit.ly/3jcjNu8

This course was fully subscribed at the APSA 2021 and 2022.

Holli Semetko
Half Day, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 409A

This four hour short course brings together scholars and practitioners conducting research on public opinion, social media, misinformation and elections, to discuss the latest research and the challenges and opportunities working in Global South countries.

As much of the extant research on these important topics is from western democracies, this short also course aims to build networks for research development across Global South countries, and introduce participants to experts and mentors.

Topics Include:

1. Deliberative Polling
2. Polling and Forecasting Elections
3. Misinformation Research & Survey Experiments
4. Meta (Facebook) Ad Library
5. Social Media and Political Advertising

Speakers include:

1. Alice Siu, Stanford University, USA
2. Yashwant Deshmukh, Founder & Director, CVoter, India
3. Kiran Arabaghatta Basavaraj, University College London, UK
4. Meta (Facebook) Ad Library (representative to be named)
5. Holli A. Semetko, Emory University, USA

Virtual Course

Basak Taraktas
Half Day, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

This short course provides an introduction to computational social science (CSS). We begin with an overview of some of the techniques, such as machine learning, natural language processing, and network analysis, and the kinds of social science questions they are most helpful to answer. In the second section, we do an introduction to social network analysis with hands-on exercises. This short course aims to provide a basic understanding of various CSS tools and some experience in social network analysis.

Tasha Fairfield
Half Day, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 406B

The study of causal mechanisms (aka causal processes) is ubiquitous in the social sciences. The promise of process-focused research using in-depth case studies is that we can gain a better understanding of how things work and under what conditions using actual cases instead of controlled comparisons across cases using experimentally manipulating treatments to gain knowledge about mean causal effects. However, the potential gains of process-focused research have not been fully reaped in the social sciences because of the tendency to reduce causal processes to simple one-liners that do not unpack what is actually going on in a case (e.g. that grievances are linked to democratization through social mobilization). By not unpacking process theoretically, we are unable to evidence how they work empirically because empirical material is only processual evidence when we can identify the theorized part of a process that it is evidence of.

Inspired by the mechanistic turns in fields such as medicine, policy evaluation and policy studies (e.g. Clarke et al, 2014; Cartwright and Hardie, 2012; Cartwright, 2021; Capano, et al, 2019), the first session of the course discusses what ’good’ processual explanations can look like in the social sciences. The course introduces a conceptual language of actors, activities and linkages that enables us to move beyond one-liner theories to theorize the inner workings of causal processes, while at the same time not getting lost in the gory details.
The second session presents the developing standards in the natural and social sciences for what constitutes ‘good’ mechanistic/processual evidence, and how we can evaluate it. The final session discusses practical applications, including what and how we can ‘generalize’ from processual case studies, and how process-focused research can be used as an adjunct method to improve social science experiments in designing the experiment and interpreting the data.

Stacey Pollard
Half Day, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 410

This course provides an overview of how to teach academically rigorous intelligence research that fills a complex intelligence or national security gap. The course provides the basics of how the disciplines of political science and public administration can inform the conduct of valid academic intelligence research; discusses the 7 main research designs used in academic intelligence research, and lends insights as to how the research results can reach intelligence community end users and intelligence-adjacent academe to contribute to bodies of knowledge on topics critical to U.S. national security.

Josef Woldense
Half Day, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 409B

What is the job talk? Simple, it is an oral presentation that displays your research. The problem, of course, is that you have spent all of your time thinking and expressing your research in a medium other than the oral form of communication. Although the underlying ideas you wish to convey are largely the same, the medium in which you are now asked to express them is profoundly different. The primary challenge in crafting the job talk, then, is this: How do I translate my research from one mode of communication to another? This is precisely the question this workshop seeks to answer and it does so by drawing on storytelling as the central translating device.

Virtual Course

Andrew Bennett, Jeffrey T. Checkel, and Tasha Fairfield
Half Day, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

This short course covers the underlying logic and best practices of process tracing, which is a within-case method of developing and testing causal explanations of individual cases. We begin by exploring the philosophies of science behind process tracing: scientific realist and interpretive. Next, we highlight, define and provide examples of the central concept process tracing measures – causal mechanisms – noting their difference from causal effects and interpretive understandings of causation.

The core of the short course is then an introduction to the logic and best practices of process tracing, both its ‘front end’ data collection and ‘back end’ data analysis. For data collection, we consider the typical ways in which process tracing gathers evidence on the observable implications of causal mechanisms, including archival work, document analysis of secondary sources, various field methods (interviews, political ethnography, ethnography), and surveys. In reviewing these methods, we consider the inferential and ethical challenges each raises when accessing process-tracing data. On data analysis and process tracing, we begin by considering the informal manner in which many scholars proceed; more important, we survey the growing number of techniques (e.g., Bayesian logic, directed acyclic graphs) that allow us to conduct the process tracing analysis more formally and transparently. We finish this part of the course by articulating a set of best practices for conducting process tracing.

After this overview of the philosophical, causal and data logics of process tracing, the course introduces participants to two different types. We begin with Bayesian process tracing—comparing rival hypotheses; evaluating the inferential weight of evidence by “mentally inhabiting” the world of each hypothesis and asking which one makes the evidence more expected; updating prior views about which hypothesis is more plausible; and fostering transparency through systemization. We then turn to interpretive process tracing—inductive approach; practice logic; establishing local causation; transparency through ethical self-reflection. Full details on each approach will be offered in separate afternoon short courses: “Bayesian Reasoning” (QMMR B) led by Tasha Fairfield and Andy Bennett; and “Interpretive Process Tracing & Practice Tracing” (QMMR C) led by Jeff Checkel and Vincent Pouliot.

Throughout the course we will emphasize best practices and applications to exemplars of process tracing research. While the examples are primarily drawn from international relations and comparative politics, the methods we discuss are applicable to all the subfields of political science, to sociology, economics, history, business studies, public policy, and many other fields.

The course’s final section is devoted to small-group breakout sessions, where participants workshop how they plan to use process tracing in their research. Are there data access, data collection, data analysis or ethical issues with which they are grappling? Instructors and fellow students will offer constructive advice on how best to address such issues.

Virtual Course

Rebecca Tapscott
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM

In recent years, political science has taken an ethical “turn”. Scholars are increasingly publishing on research ethics, convening panels and roundtables; many journals now request statements on research ethics or evidence of ethical review; and in 2020, the APSA released a new set of ethical principles to guide political science research. This impressive collective effort has brought ethics to the fore, enriching reflection on what constitutes an ethical choice, and the methodological and normative implications of these decisions.

Starting from this point, this workshop convenes scholars concerned with research ethics to consider how we might develop a critical orientation toward these issues, and what may be gained by doing so. To this end, we ask how we might conceptualize research ethics as political practice and what new ethical considerations this would raise. In particular, the minicourse sets out the implications of decentering the individual researcher, instead foregrounding social, political, and institutional structures that constrain how issues are made “ethical” and the political economy of these decisions. We propose that this critical orientation adds depth and nuance to cutting-edge scholarship on ethics by situating ethical standards, debates, and decisions within the broader politics of knowledge production, and the role of political science therein.

The workshop aims to encourage participants to draw on this critical orientation to take active ownership of ethical decisions, situating these within the broader political economy of academic knowledge production. To this end, this pre-conference short course will include several mini lectures combined with a series of facilitated discussions that draw together case studies with recent work in political science on the practice and regulation of research ethics. The minicourse will have two taught sessions, and an afternoon roundtable.

Session 1: The politics of research ethics [3 hours, 9:30am-12:30pm]
After introductions and icebreakers, the first session will begin with a case of a real-world ethical conundrum and provide a sandpit for participants to collectively identify ethical questions that emerge from the case. Pedagogically, we start with this session to engage participants and build a collaborative environment. Convenors will draw out themes from the discussion and highlight where and how different issues point to a political economy of research ethics, and the implications of making these decisions under the framework of “ethics”.

Session 2: What would a critical orientation toward research ethics look like? [1.5 hours, 1:30pm-3:00pm]
The second session situates the discussion from Session 1 in relation to the institutional or disciplinary tools that currently exist to provide guidance on ethical practice, including institutional review boards, professional trainings such as CITI, and APSA’s new guidelines. In a guided discussion focused on IRBs, we will consider how ethical principles and structures interface with the substantive commitments and contradictions identified in the first session. After setting out IRBs as an object of study that are defined by a particular historical political economy, we reflect on how structurally, they therefore privilege certain conceptualizations of what constitutes an “ethical” question, even while leaving ethical decision-making extremely open ended due to their reliance on broad ethical principles (respect for persons, beneficence, and justice). This session builds on the first session to help draw together discussions of procedural ethics and ethics in practice, two areas that are often seen as existing in parallel or even in conflict. Instead, the short course shows how both can benefit from a critical orientation, and in this sense, can importantly complement one another. The conclusion of the session will draw together strands from the morning sessions to set out how political scientists might begin to make space for a critical orientation toward research ethics.

Session 3: Research Ethics Roundtable [1.75 hours, 3:15pm-5pm]
The final session will feature a round-table with Anastasia Shesterinina and Rebecca Tapscott, along with additional guests Will Reno and Trisha Philipps to reflect on how discussions on research ethics have evolved in political science, and what broader structural factors (e.g., disciplinary, political, sociological factors) may be shaping the evolution of this debate. There will be ample opportunity for exchange with workshop participants.

Objectives:
At the end of this short course, participants will:

• have familiarity with key ethical principles and their potential implications for political science,
• understand research ethics (i.e., identifying ethical problems, discussing and reflecting on ethics, and making decisions about what is ethical or unethical research) as political practice,
• be able to discuss some potential implications of this, for individual research projects and for the practice of research ethics in political science more broadly.

Michael Bailey
Half Day, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 410

Survey researchers typically deal with non-response via weighting, quota sampling and multilevel regression and post-stratification. These tools are powerful, but do not address non-ignorable non-response, the kind of response that occurs when non-response is directly related to the content being surveyed.

Ironically, non-ignorable non-response is often ignored, a pattern this course seeks to counteract by exploring survey research through the lens of non-ignorable non-response. This entails understanding first how ignorable and non-ignorable non-response have been important in the history of polling, including in the highly fluid contemporary era.
Second, this involves thinking deeply about why non-ignorable non-response poses such dangers for polling, especially modern polling that is typically based either on opt-in internet samples or random samples with very low response rates.

The course ends on a constructive note. We need not be passive or fatalistic in the face of potential non-ignorable non-response. There is a broad and growing toolkit for dealing with non-ignorable non-response. Using this toolkit makes new demands on the data, but not unreasonable ones.

The goal is that participants emerge with a stronger understanding of this important potential source of survey error and a grasp of the tools to help tame it.

Course Objectives
1) Understand the history of polling up to contemporary era in light of ignorable and non-ignorable non-response.
2) Understand the intuition behind the distinctive nature of non-ignorable non-response bias, why weighting and related tools do not address it and the type of data needed to diagnose and counteract it.
3) Be introduced to a statistical toolkit for diagnosing and reducing or eliminating non-ignorable non-response bias.

Bloc 1: Non-Ignorable Non-Response in Context
– Introduction to non-ignorable non-response
– History of polling across three eras: massive data (Literary Digest), quota sampling, random sampling
– Contemporary approaches including weighting and non-probability sampling

Bloc 2: Non-ignorable Non-Response
– Intuition: Where is it ? What problems does it cause?
– Formalizing the problem with the Meng Equation
– Random sampling versus random contact

Bloc 3: Tools for Countering Non-Ignorable Non-Response
– Two-stage selection models, including Heckman and copula models
– Semi-parametric estimation
– Importance of good data, especially randomized response instruments
– Decision tree for modeling non-response

Bloc 4: Applications
– Overview of examples
– Empirical analysis of surveys in U.S. politics (case study with code)

Who should attend
Participants should have a background and interest in statistics and methodology, probably at the level of advanced undergraduate or master’s level. They should understand regression and probit models and be open to discussions of joint probability distributions.

Instructor
Michael Bailey is the Walsh Professor of American Government at Georgetown University where he directs the Data Science for Public Policy program. His work covering survey research, Congress, the Supreme Court and methodology has been published in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science and elsewhere. He has a book contract with Cambridge University Press for Polling at a Crossroads, a critical review of contemporary polling with a focus on how to understand, diagnose and ameliorate non-ignorable non-response. He is also the author of Real Stats and Real Econometrics (Oxford University Press).

Victor Asal
Full Day, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 511C

Political violence is, unfortunately, too often a key part of intra- and interstate politics. Understanding the motivations for and repercussions of such political violence is important for students understanding a key element of the dynamics of politics and government. Students, many, if not most of whom have not experienced political violence have difficulties understanding violence or its impact on people and the state. In this full day workshop, we plan to focus on both intra- and interstate political violence with specific focus on the factors that lead to such conflict.

• In the morning session, we will focus on the intrastate level showcasing and teaching exercises that highlight the desire for control as well as the potential impact at political discrimination on the choice of violence.
• The afternoon session will examine teaching exercises focus on how competition between states and the fear of other states can lead to state on state violence at the international level.

We will use a variety of exercises, games, and simulations to highlight the conceptual or theoretical models of political violence and will provide participants with the resources, tools, and practical experience to run the same in their own classrooms with their students. Some of the games and simulations we will discuss and demonstrate (with high participant participation) include the “identity exercise” to showcase about identity and discrimination, the “running game” (and the “unfair running game”) to explore inequality and motivations for violence, and the “revolution game” which explores the challenges for revolution from both the side of the strong and of the oppressed. Some of the games we will use to teach about interstate conflict include the “Hobbes games” related to the basics of the realist perspective on conflict and “Fearon’s Rationalist Bargaining Theory of War game” that explores the outcomes of war as not always zero-sum We will also showcase how larger simulations (including multi-day simulations like Reacting to the Past) can be useful in classrooms. Finally, we will examine the board game Diplomacy to look at international conflict. Participants will learn how to use these and other games as well as the discussion of how they played out to teach about the causes and impact of political violence at the interstate and interstate level.

Jan Pierskalla 
Half Day, 1:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Los Angeles Convention Center, 516