lost in statistics

[Lost in transition]

hi,

now i'm totally despondent. I've read through a lot of articles in IR and civil war, and found out that researches without/with little quantititve method are really hard to find.

I know the academic penchant for quantitive method in IR, but didn't expect this much difficulty to find right scholars to study with.

Of course, I would learn quantititive method but i'm political philosophy-turn- IR student, so I have only scanty statistics skill at this point.

Do you know anyone who use less numbers in IR? plz tell me.

Edited October 22, 2010 by civil war

[AuldReekie]

hi,

now i'm totally despondent. I've read through a lot of articles in IR and civil war, and found out that researches without/with little quantititve method are really hard to find.

I know the academic penchant for quantitive method in IR, but didn't expect this much difficulty to find right scholars to study with.

Of course, I would learn quantititive method but i'm political philosophy-turn- IR student, so I have only scanty statistics skill at this point.

Do you know anyone who use less numbers in IR? plz tell me.

Europe. Our scholars quite frequently mention how America is far far far more quantitatively orientated.

Barring that there must be lots of Qualitative scholars you can work with in the US...

[Lost in transition]

Europe. Our scholars quite frequently mention how America is far far far more quantitatively orientated.

Barring that there must be lots of Qualitative scholars you can work with in the US...

oopps sorry!! i didn't mean to click "-"!!!! i'm sorry. what can i do to cancel that click?

[Wesson]

Frankly, I think your best bet is to learn the stats. You don't need to have a background in stats to survive a methods sequence, you just need to do the work and not panic about it. Most programs start you at the beginning. Even if you end up doing qualitative research, you'll need to engage the quantitative scholars, which means you'll need to understand them, which means you'll need the stats background. My advice is to find programs that have scholars who are studying the questions you find to be interesting, irrespective of method, and take it from there. A lot of people, when starting out, aren't too enthusiastic about stats courses, but, once they see that the material in those courses may help them to answer the questions they find to be interesting (i.e., once stats becomes a means to an end rather than an end in itself), they learn what they need to learn.

[polisciphd]

I echo Wesson's sentiment, even though I began as stats averse, I will be much more marketable because of my extensive stats training. Enrolled at one of the most quant heavy departments in the country with little exposure before hand, and have made it through without much collateral damage.

[Lost in transition]

Thanks for all your comments. i was actually interested in women in civil war..strong interest in feminism. however most of the faculty members in my grad school were worried about my 'marketability'...and there are few profs who have similar research interest in pol sci besides those in gender studies deps.

i once took an undergrad course in ir with strong emphasis in quant..and i started to abhor those strange? greek words and everything..so i avoided quant in my MA and i start to realize my weakness..

Anyway i'm more than willing to learn stats. i hope it would help to answer my questions.

thanks!

[catchermiscount]

Many scholars who focus on civil war are not super duper technical, either. As but one example, Barbara Walter, who is one of the leading figures in several strands of the literature on civil wars, is not what one would call a super-techie person; she's super smart, has good ideas about civil wars, and then uses standard techniques as evidence of her arguments. Many other scholars in the literature are similar.

What's more, I can tell you first hand that the data is generally so full of shit that one can't take it too too seriously anyway.

So, learn the stats, yes, but don't think you have to become a convert to be successful.

[balderdash]

Steven David, Johns Hopkins.

To a lesser extent, there are a few scholars at Yale who would work (personally, I'd say Blattman and Kalyvas).

But it depends on what you mean by quant... if constructing a simple model to see the correlation of one thing to another is too quant-heavy for you, you'll be hard-pressed to find anything. I'm in the UK now and even the scholars here do such analysis.

Also, civil war is a pretty broad field these days... it really depends on what part of civil war interests you. I see that you mentioned women in civil wars - what specifically?

[Penelope Higgins]

Just to point out that you won't find Blattman too interested in qualitative work - see his blog for his views on how to do social science, and remember that he has a joint appointment in economics. Wood, on the other hand, would be a better fit; she works on women in civil war, and teaches the qualitative methods class for grad students in the poli sci department at Yale. And her two books have little to no stats in them.

Steven David, Johns Hopkins.

To a lesser extent, there are a few scholars at Yale who would work (personally, I'd say Blattman and Kalyvas).

But it depends on what you mean by quant... if constructing a simple model to see the correlation of one thing to another is too quant-heavy for you, you'll be hard-pressed to find anything. I'm in the UK now and even the scholars here do such analysis.

Also, civil war is a pretty broad field these days... it really depends on what part of civil war interests you. I see that you mentioned women in civil wars - what specifically?

[balderdash]

Just to point out that you won't find Blattman too interested in qualitative work - see his blog for his views on how to do social science, and remember that he has a joint appointment in economics. Wood, on the other hand, would be a better fit; she works on women in civil war, and teaches the qualitative methods class for grad students in the poli sci department at Yale. And her two books have little to no stats in them.

Ah, you couldn't be more right. I did indeed mean Wood, but I guess reading a Blattman article at the time created a communication breakdown between brain and fingertips.