Instruction
This will be a paper of 7–10 pages (double spaced, twelve-point font, one-inch margins) that summarizes current research on an appropriately narrow topic in Political Science.
The paper should cite at least five studies published in the last ten years. These can journal articles or book chapters. The requirement is that they be novel research in peer-reviewed academic journals (i.e., not book reviews, not magazine or newspaper articles). Citations and bibliography should follow the Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition.
You are strongly encouraged to pursue a topic of your own choosing. If you get stuck, though, you can also pursue one of the following:
• How well does public policy reflect voter preferences?
• Are European democratic institutions weakening?
• What factors help predict the onset of civil war?
There is no single correct way to write a literature review, but there is a single objective: to summarize the current literature on a topic and suggest new avenues for future research.
A literature review might simply categorize existing research on a topic. That is, it might group different studies into categories according to how they define a concept or what methodological approach they take. The Fuist (2013) article on culture and the Straus (2001) article on genocide are both examples of literature reviews that categorize.
When categorizing existing literature, you might ask:
• What are the most common methodological approaches to this topic in recent
scholarship?
o Do some seem more appropriate to the subject than others? Why?
• How do different authors define key concepts and variables?
o Are some definitions more persuasive than others? Why?
• Do different authors have different normative commitments?
o Does that shape the definitions they use and the conclusions they reach?
In addition to categorizing existing scholarship, a literature review might also synthesize. In this case, the reviewer will identify elements of existing approaches to the topic that they think are especially useful and suggest combinations. They might also draw from various scholarship on the topic to form a new definition of a key concept or variable. The Rogers Brubaker (2017) article on populism is a good example of a literature review that synthesizes.
When synthesizing existing literature, you might ask:
• Could different approaches to the topic be productively combined?
• What’s missing from a common approach? How could it be supplemented?
• Is there an aspect of the topic that seems important to you that most authors aren’t
considering?
• Does a popular argument or conceptualization seem mistaken?
This project is a bit of an undertaking, so the below deadlines are set to encourage you to complete it in stages