Description
Book SynopsisThere are many different ways to do political science research. This book takes a core question that motivates research in political science what is democracy? and presents, in a single volume, original research demonstrating a variety of approaches to studying it. The approaches and related methods covered by the chapters in this book include normative political theory, positivist quantitative analysis, behaviouralism, critical theory, post-structuralism, historical institutionalism, process tracing, case studies, and literature reviews. Readers are confronted with the different assumptions that researchers make when entering the research process and can compare and contrast the many different ways that a single question can be studied . This book will be enlightening for students of democracy as well as those interested in research design and methodological approaches.
Table of Contents1. Approaching the Study of Democracy Cameron D. Anderson, Western University and Laura B. Stephenson, Western University Part I – Democracy in Theory: Normative Approaches 2. Democracy: What and Why Charles Jones, Western University 3. Is Majority Rule Democratic? Richard Vernon, Western University Part II – Analyzing Democracy: Positivist Approaches 4. Evaluating a Democracy: Are Citizens Engaged? Cameron D. Anderson, Western University and Laura B. Stephenson, Western University 5. Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy David Armstrong, Western University 6. A Democratic Continuum? Bruce Morrison, Western University 7. Membership Rules for Democratic Communities: Canada and the United States Andrew Sancton, Western University and Christopher Alcantara, Western University 8. Representation and the Practice of Politics Rob Leone, Western University and Josh Morgan, City Councilor, London, Ontario 9. The Democratic Dimensions of Specialized Governments Joseph Lyons, Western University Part III – Interpreting Democracy: Critical and Post-modern Approaches 10. Hatred of Democracy Dan Bousfield, Western University 11. Rethinking Democracy Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, Western University
