Instructions for the Individual Essay
Your individual essay should be a research paper that shows a rigorous application of existing theoretical frameworks and methods in comparative politics in analyzing real- world political phenomena. It can build on your group project discussions as well as our class readings and discussions.
TOPIC: You can choose a topic for your individual essay from the substantive area that you explored in your group project. Your individual paper can be either (option 1) an in-depth empirical examination of your group project topic (i.e., an actual application of methodological outlines you developed) or (option 2) an exploration of a related
topic.
In any case, however, your individual paper should be sufficiently distinct from those of your group members’ individual papers. An example below should help clarify.
Say, your group project is on ‘causes of democracy’ and your group chose to focus on the relationship between economic development (explanatory/independent variable) and democracy (outcome/dependent variable). For your individual essay you can conduct a comparative case study of this topic using two or more real-world cases (option 1). Alternatively, you can choose to focus on another but related topic, such as economic growth and democracy (option 2a), or simply do an inductive study of why some countries are more democratic than others (hint: if you choose two very similar countries that nonetheless have different democratic experiences in some particular way (executive- legislative relations, for example), you can ask why that is the case and then try to inductively find the factor(s) /variable(s) that can explain this difference; this is option 2b). Choose whatever appeals to you substantively AND seems feasible given your individual time constraints. However, the cases you select and probably your particular methodology in the individual essay would/should be different from what your peers in the same group are doing for their individual essays. Just coordinate this with your peers.
QUESTIONS: Like your group project paper, your individual paper should answer the questions below. But unlike your group project paper, your answers to some of these questions are likely to be more nuanced
in your individual paper.
1. What is your research question? (Remember, a choice of methodology depends on the (exact) formulation of the research question.)
2. What have others said about this? Give the literature review. Remember that a good literature review is focused and critical – it shows not only what we know (or think we know) from the existing studies, but also what we don’t know due to theoretical, methodological or empirical gaps in this literature. (Theoretical gaps are when we can say, for example, ‘this study or studies pay attention to X, but Z can be an equally plausible cause of Y, but this Z has attracted surprisingly little
attention’. Methodological gaps/issues are when existing studies have, for example, used one specific methodology or have used some methodology incorrectly. Empirical gaps are when, for example, existing studies have focused on a subset of cases (say, East Asia) whereas their argument is generalized to a global set of cases, but other subsets have remained unexplored.)
3. What are your hypotheses/explanations, if any, and what is your theory? (If you’re going the deductive way – remember the ‘wheel of science’.)
4. What assumptions would you need to make, if any, in building that theory? (This question may not be always applicable, but it usually is and it is important. For example, if your hypothesis relates to how politicians choose between competing policy options, your assumption may be that politicians want to stay in office – so, for the argument that legislators in democracies are likely to engage in pork barrel projects (over other options) we may need to make a few assumptions: legislators want to stay in office for as long as they can and their constituency is key in making that happen.)
5. What are alternative hypotheses/explanations that you also need to check through your research design?
6. What are the key variables in your study conceptually? How do you measure each variable? Specify your variables. If you have intervening and condition variables, state so. Alternative explanations/hypotheses can be measured by control variables. For example, for the hypothesis ‘more ethnic diversity is likely to result in a higher probability of ethnic conflict’ your dependent variable is ethnic conflict and your independent variable is ethnic diversity. Ethnic conflict can be measured by the number of incidents of armed ethnic clashes in a country in a given time (there are a few online databases that provide this information.) Ethnic diversity can be measured by a country’s score on ethnic fractionalization index (see, for example, Alesina et al. and Fearon datasets).
7. What is your population of inference (or universe of cases)? I.e., what real-world units (individuals, communities, countries?) can we draw conclusions on, based on the sample you select?
8. How did you select cases for comparison? What is the time frame for comparison? (Your cases should ideally be as representative of your population of reference as possible.)
9. Which design – for example, most similar systems design or most different systems design in case of small-N – is more appropriate for answering your (particular) research
question? (Pick one or two methodologies among those used in your group project. Remember that they can significantly overlap, which is ok – you can fuse them for your advantage.)
10. How do you test your hypotheses/theory against empirical “reality”? In other words, what is/are your method(s) of data collection (e.g., use of existing survey data or historical records or case studies)? How do you analyze these data (quantitative or qualitative analysis of primary data, analysis of secondary sources, documentary analysis, etc.)?
11. What are your results and findings? That is, what patterns related to your research question/hypotheses emerge from the data and how do you interpret them?
12. What are your conclusions? What are the theoretical implications of your study – that is, what does your paper help us explain or understand better? What are the practical implications, if any, of your study – that is, how does your paper inform policy debates?
STRUCTURE: You are free to structure your paper as you wish as long as it answers the above questions in a coherent, clear, focused, and
engaging manner. Be succinct and use ACTIVE language (google it

if unsure). You should use the broad structure outlined below, but amend it as you see fit (different sections need not be the same length). USE HEADINGS THAT TELL A STORY – for example, instead of ‘Findings’ write ‘Findings: Ethnic Diversity Increases the Probability of Ethnic Conflict’ or instead of ‘Literature Review’ write ‘Existing Scholarship on the Causes of Y: The Curious Case of X and Z as Primary Causes.’
TITLE PAGE Title
Author
Abstract (of no more than 200 words)
A brief statement of your topic, methodology, findings and this study’s theoretical and/or practical implications.
INTRODUCTION
Keywords
LITERATURE REVIEW
QUESTION(S) AND HYPOTHESIS(-ES)
RESEARCH DESIGN (variables, case selection, and methods) RESULTS AND FINDINGS
CONCLUSION
Appendix (if any needed)
References
*The individual essay should be maximum 2,500 words in length (for those who say that I cannot check the number of words if you submit the paper in PDF format, I say – ‘yes, I can!’). While the abstract, appendix, footnotes, references, tables, figures and maps are NOT included in the word count, you need to be frugal with space – don’t feel obliged to fill the space; on the contrary, brevity is a virtue virtually everywhere in professional and academic worlds.
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