Political Science

The EITM Summer Institutes concentrate on research in areas of political science that integrate both theory and methods. The 2007 EITM VI institute follows the successful format of previous EITM summer institutes and will combine highly interactive teaching and lecture sessions with ample opportunity for students to develop their research projects in the EITM framework. Each of the first three and a half weeks of instruction will focus on a substantive area where research integrating theory and empirics has already made rich contributions to political science. These are: (1) Institutions and Institutional Analysis; (2) Empirical Evaluation of Causality; (3) Complexity: Computational Models and Social Networks; and (4) Testing the Implications of Theoretical Models Using Laboratory Experimental Games. The second half of the fourth week of the institute will focus on students' research projects, and will conclude with student presentations. The institute will integrate developments and findings in the substantive areas of American politics, comparative politics, international relations, and political economy throughout the entire four weeks.

The First Three and a Half Weeks: Substantive Units

In each of the first three and a half weeks of instruction, lecturers will conduct a survey of their substantive research area, stressing key previous theoretical and empirical developments. They will explicate the steps needed to construct "tests" of models in that area by, e.g., considering basic assumption validity or drawing testable conjectures from comparative statics and other deductions from the model. And they will discuss appropriate empirical methods for evaluating whether and how data confirm or reject the model, developing more fully any highly specialized techniques required. These empirical modeling considerations could involve specifying test equations with the proper control variables and functional forms, deriving statistical estimators, conducting case studies, designing an experiment, or framing a simulation.
The first three and a half weeks will involve morning and afternoon sessions, and occasional early evening and Saturday morning sessions. A very full week might, for example, have lead lecturers survey theory and empirics in their area Monday and Tuesday morning and afternoon and guest lecturers demonstrate cutting-edge EITM research in that area Wednesday and Thursday. Faculty and students might present current research or research ideas Friday, leaving Saturday morning to review exercises and wrap-up. Evening lab-time is reserved for exercises.
Each teaching team features a lead lecturer and partner who survey their substantive area, its theory, its empirics, and the state of the EITM approach in the area. Guest lecturers present their own completed research exemplifying current integration of formal theory and empirical methods. Guests present after lead and partner have introduced the area's substance sufficiently for participants to appreciate and to evaluate the work critically.

The Fourth Week: Presentations of Students' EITM Research

Participants' own research projects remain a primary focus throughout the entire institute. Time is set aside during the first three and a half weeks for discussion of research projects and obtaining feedback from lecturers. Work on the research project culminates in the second half of the fourth week of the institute, when participants will receive intense mentoring regarding their research projects from the institute's full faculty. The institute will conclude with participants making presentations of their work to institute faculty and students, both of whom will provide feedback. Week 4 also aims to help germinate new research ideas in the EITM mould.

Department of Political Science, 326 Perkins Library, Box 90204, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708.

Phone 919.660.4300 -- Fax 919.660.4330