KISS DTC
King’s Interdisciplinary Social Science Doctoral Training Centre
Advanced Research Methods in the Social Sciences
TITLE
LEADER
DEPARTMENT
ACADEMIC YEAR
TYPE OF EVENT
NUMBER OF
SESSIONS
TIME & DATE
DESCRIPTION
READING LIST
KISS201 CONCEPT FORMATION
Dr Louise Tillin
[email protected]
India Institute
2016-17
Workshop
1
21 March 2017, 2-5pm
TERM
LOCATION
LENGTH OF
SESSION
Spring
Waterloo Bridge Wing 4/14
3 hours
In this session we will look at the role and definition of concepts
in social science research. Many of the central concepts you will
be using in your writing have contested meanings – think, for
example, of democracy, development, participation, equality,
power, poverty, liberalism, neo-liberalism and so on. Some have
deeply normative associations – that is they imply value
judgements about how political or social life should work. Some
embody theories – implicit understandings about how the world
does work. The definition of concepts is therefore an important
task in social science research, in order to clarify meaning. It also
raises questions about measurement – how to define which
empirical cases or situations correspond to a particular concept.
ALL THE READINGS BELOW ARE ESSENTIAL (see KISS DTC
Summer Term Courses KEATS page):
Sartori, Giovanni, “Concept misformation in comparative politics”,
American Political Science Review 64:4 (1970): 1033-53
Collier, David and Steven Levitsky, “Democracy with Adjectives:
Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research”, World Politics,
49:3 (1997), 430-451
Boas, Taylor C. and Jordan Gans-Morse, “Neoliberalism: From New
Liberal Philosophy to Anti-Liberal Slogan”, Studies in Comparative
International Development, 44: 2 (summer 2009)
ELIGIBILITY
PREPARATION
NUMBER OF
STUDENTS
Goertz, Gary Social Science Concepts: A User’s Guide (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2006), CHAPTER 1
Students must be willing to complete the preparation activity
before attending the session (below). The course convenor has a
political studies background. If you are a health researcher,
please contact her in advance of registering for this course to
ensure that you will be able to participate fully and find it
relevant.
Ahead of the session, I would like you to think about an
“essentially contested concept” in your own research and try to
define it. Think about the potentially competing ways in which the
concept is defined by others, how it is or can be measured and
how you deploy it in your own writing. Write a paragraph
defining this paragraph and bring it with you.
15