Do We Preach What We Practice? A Survey of Methods in Political Science Journals and Curricula

Abstract

using statistics and formal modeling rose sharply and the proportion using qualitative methods dropped markedly. Second, there is a disjuncture between the high proportion of research performed with qualitative methods, the relatively low proportion of coaxrses oJ%ered in these methods, clnd the even lower proportion of departments that require them. There is arguably a similar but smaller gap in the number of departments that offer or require formal modeling.3 All of the top 30 departments surveyed offered courses in statistical methods, while only two-thirds of the departments offered courses in formal modeling and qualitative methods. Two-thirds of the departments required students to take statistics, while formal modeling and qualitative methods were required in only two departments. Third, qualitative or case study research in American Politics is in steep decline in most of the top journals. In the top seven multimethod journals, the proportion of articles presenting case studies in American Politics fell from 12% in 1975, to 7% in 1985, to 1% in 1999-2000. Fourth, the mix of urticles in APSR has been highly unrepresentative of the substantive and methodological mix in other journals. In the late l990s, apsR had almost twice the average proportion of articles using formal modeling and articles on American Politics than the top 10 journals, while it had about half the average of articles in International Relations and less than one-fourth the average of articles using case studies. Perhaps most striking, of the International Relations articles in APSR, only one in 20 used case studies, compared to more than four out of 10 of the International Relations articles among the top 10 journals. We detail these results below and conclude with recommendations for maintaining a productive balance of methods in departments, curricula, and journals, and for increasing multimethod collaboration among researchers.