Outline for Research Paper

Section 1 Introduction

What case(s) are your going to examine?

What theory(ies) are you going to apply?

Why did you choose these case(s) and theory(ies)?

Section 2: Theories and Hypotheses

A) Describe the overall logic of the theory(ies) you will be employing.

• At what level of analysis does the theory operate?
• What are the essential assumptions of the theory (i.e. actors behave rationally, etc).
• What does the theory see as the cause of international conflict?

B) What hypotheses flow from the theory about your case?

• Hypotheses are PREDICTIONS from your theory about the specific case
• They can be phrased as “if, then” statements (i.e. IF WWI was caused by power transition theory THEN we should see X).
• They should be include specific information that you will be looking for in your cases.

C) Describe logic and hypotheses for each theory.

Section 3 – Review the Case

• Talk about why you selected this case. Is it a hard case for your theory(ies)? Is it an easy case? What conclusions can we draw from this case about other cases?
• Review the history of your case(s) with a FOCUS ON YOUR HYPOTHESES. Every case has an infinite number of details that could be discussed. Details are good, but try to be sure that you select details that are relevant to your hypotheses from the previous section.

Section 4 – Draw your Conclusions

Now you need to match up the information in your case study(ies) to the theory(ies). What does the case say about your hypotheses? Which ones are supported? Which ones are not? You do NOT need to come to a single “thumbs up or thumbs down” conclusion for any theory. It is OK to conclude that theory A was right about X, but theory B was right about Y. If the theories are not logically incompatible, it is also OK to conclude that both theories are entirely correct. Finally, it is OK to concludethat NONE of the theories you looked at can explain the case. What is important is that you draw the logically appropriate conclusions by matching the case evidence to your hypotheses.

Your grade is determined by the way in which you match theory and data and the way you draw conclusions from that process. You are NOT graded on how well the theories explain the case.