Methodological Innovations and Dilemmas in Contemporary Political Research

This section aims to provide a venue for discussing and sharing current innovations and dilemmas in political methodology. As such, we hope to host a wide variety of panels that address pressing methodological issues that can be of interest to a larger group of political researchers. Although we will consider any panel that addresses methodological issues explicitly, we aim to encourage methodological discussion across different communities of researchers on issues that concern us all. In particular, we would like to encourage panels and papers along three different fronts. On the first front, we see a remarkable lack of consensus among researchers about the role of causation in political research. For some, the focus on simple causal relationships leads us astray from a better understanding of complex political phenomena. For others, causal relationships are the highpoint of academic endeavour even if sometimes difficult to capture empirically. Among this latter group we find a wide range of approaches for mapping and capturing causal relationships. To address some of these issues we hope to host a couple of panels that specifically address new developments related to the study of causation. On the second front, we welcome papers that showcase new methodological techniques, broadly defined, which may be of interest to more specific audiences within the community of research communities. Panels devoted to ontological or epistemological issues, and/or new approaches and techniques across a broad spectrum of research designs (e.g., small N, medium, N, large N) are encouraged. Finally, we encourage panel proposals that address methodological issues that are common to researchers from diverse research communities. Thus, for example, new work that embraces multi-methods, multi-level analyses, and/or addresses themes of common interest can be seen as fruitful ways to bridge the gap that once separated researchers form different analytical traditions.