Week 1 Discussion Topics

Students,

Please respond to one of the following prompts (or a topic of your choosing):

1. Explain when you would use either the Most Similar Systems Design (MSSD) or the Most Different Systems Design (MDSD). When would you use both, and why? How would you go about selecting cases in order to use these techniques?

2. Provide an example of a hypothesis. How would you go about testing it? Explain what it means to have variation on both the dependent and independent variables and why you MUST have this variation in order to test your hypothesis. What would happen if you did not have variation?

3. How would you classify Mexico's regime type? (You may only respond to this question if you attended lecture on Thursday, because you will need to use the examples from the videos to support your response. You may also draw on the excerpt in the book that addresses this topic).

Please let me know of any problems with posting comments. As a reminder, I will be away from email all day tomorrow, so don't panic if you don't hear from me right away.

Best, Kris

Dear POL2 Students,

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Happy blogging!

Kris