Research design on any international relations topic

Assignment 2: Research Design –
For assignment two, students must present a research design on a selected topic of their
own choosing (one they may or may not wish to study for their dissertation). The purpose of
the assignment is to provide students with direct experience of the research design process
experienced by academic and professional researchers when beginning a research project,
making proposals for research grants etc. This involves setting out a clear research question,
underlining its importance, identifying key respondents and literatures, setting out the
methods that will be used to undertake the research and examining any issues that may
arise. As such, it aims to give students experience which they can build on when developing
their dissertation projects during their MA degree.

Research designs must examine each of the following:
a) Outline briefly the research question and, using the relevant disciplinary literature
(i.e. political science, international studies, ethnic conflict, political theory etc),
discuss the theoretical, practical and contextual reasons why this question is
important7
b) Clearly set out the aims and objectives that you might hope to achieve researching
such a topic
c) Engaging directly with the research methods literature, propose which methods
would be best to utilize – whether qualitative or quantitative, or a mixture of the two
– note any specific difficulties that you may be expected to encounter using such
methods – sampling, reliability, numbers of respondents etc – and explain how they
might be resolved,
d) Discuss the ethical issues associated with the methods utilized, and how you would
propose to get round any ethical difficulties identified
e) Finally, conclude by summarizing why your proposed research design will directly
address the question set.